COVID-19: Bengal government says ICMR’s “defective kits” responsible for delay in test results

The West Bengal health department has alleged that kits received from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for testing Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) were “apparently defective” and hence throwing up a large number of “inconclusive results”. The government clarified that this has led to repeat/“confirmatory” test run “thereby causing a delay in the generation of final test report”. The government has asked the ICMR to look into the matter immediately.

The state department of health and family welfare, in its official Twitter handle wrote this:

Apropos a mischievous report circulating in social media about the alleged delay in the time taken for testing swab samples in West Bengal, it is clarified that:

The testing kits supplied by ICMR-NICED about two weeks ago have started to throw up a large number of ‘inconclusive’ results, necessitating a repeat/ ‘confirmatory’ test run, thereby causing a delay in the generation of the final test report.

There was no problem earlier when the testing kits were being received directly from National Institute of Virology, Pune. Recently, the supplies to Government Labs in West Bengal have been routed through ICMR-NICED, Kolkata.

This problem has been faced not just by Government labs in the State but other testing labs in the country, based on their feedback shared in the relevant user groups.

The apparently defective test kits supplied by ICMR-NICED, Kolkata are resulting in a high number of repeat/ confirmatory tests and causing delays and other attendant problems at a time when we are battling a pandemic. This is an issue that ICMR needs to look into immediately.

West Bengal has reported 339 cases with 12 deaths, and 66 persons treated and discharged, according to the Ministry of Health’s website.

According to an NDTV report, Dr Shanta Dutta, Director of the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) in Kolkata, said that “It is unfortunate that the kits are not standardised to give exact results. It is difficult for each of the medical colleges to standardise the kits, hence, they are showing different and inconclusive results.

She added that initially, kits were being assembled and standardised at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune and with increased demand, ICMR started importing ready-made kits and started sending them to 26 depots for onward delivery to laboratories under its purview across the country. NICED is one such depot and supplies kits to West Bengal, Odisha, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Last week, Dutta had raised questions on the number of samples being sent to NICED.

Currently, tests in West Bengal are conducted at NICED, SSKM, Midnapore Medical College & Hospital, North Bengal Medical College & Hospital, School of Tropical Medicine, Apollo Hospital, Tata Medical Centre, Peerless Hospital and Suraksha.

The state government has also applied for more centres for conducting COVID-19 tests in some other medical colleges and hospitals (MCH) including RG Kar, MCHs at Burdwan, Bankura and Purulia. Malda Medical College and Hospital has also started testing.

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