China's 'deep concern' makes India to produce indigenous Rapid testing Kits by end of May
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New Delhi, April 29: India is progressively moving towards better overall situation day by day as the doubling rate of COVID-19 stands at 10.9 days over the last three days said Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday while reviewing the current status of COVID Surveillance with Delhi Lt. Governor and other officers from Central Government in a meeting conducted through video conferencing.
Indicating the situation across the country with respect to infection spread by COVID-19, Dr. Harsh Vardhan further said, all across the country, there are 307 districts in Green Zone, 297 in Orange and 128 in Red Zone. "These are very dynamic numbers and keep changing on daily basis and there is a need to check it and bring more and more districts under Green Zones as soon as possible", he added.
While talking about the assessment and classification of movement of districts from red zone to orange and further green zone, he noted the fact where there are 76 districts reported no fresh case from the last seven days and 45 those districts with no fresh case from the last 14 days. "While 39 districts are those where there is no fresh case from the last 21 days and 17 are those where there is no fresh case from the last 28 days, which is a sign of improvement", he added.
During the meeting, the health minister also asserted that India is to produce indigenous Rapid Testing Kits for Covid-19 by end of May. Dr. Harsh Vardhan called upon scientists to expedite the development Covid 19 mitigation solutions. "At least half a dozen vaccines are being supported of which four are in an advanced stage", he noted.
Secretary of the Department of Biotechnology, Renu Swarup informed the minister about a multi-pronged research strategy and an action plan for an immediate response as well as for long term preparedness to tackle the pandemic. These efforts include research towards development of vaccines, therapeutics and suitable animal models for Covid 19 as well as the development of indigenous diagnostics.
As the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) asked state governments to return the rapid antibody testing kits that India had procured from China over inaccurate results, China questioned the handling of the testing kits by Indian agencies. ICMR, India’s nodal body monitoring Covid-19 in India, asked the state governments to return the rapid antibody test kits. Beijing has now expressed concern and questioned the handling of the kits.
“We have also learned that there are strict requirements for the storage, transportation and use of COVID-19 antibody rapid test kits. Any operation which is not carried out by professionals in accordance with the product specifications will lead to testing accuracy variations,” Counselor Ji Rong, spokesperson of the Chinese embassy in New Delhi had said.
The Centre had procured 5 lakh kits from two Chinese companies - Wondfo Biotech and Livzon Diagnostic and distributed among the states. But after several state governments complained of inaccurate results, the kits were tested by the ICMR, following which they asked the states to stop future procurements and use of the ones distributed earlier.