New Delhi:
As Delhi prepares to ramp up testing for the coronavirus infection, Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Monday said laboratory facilities under the Centre in the national capital are being extended to the city government, while all labs and hospitals have been directed to work on their full potential to step up testing.
The Delhi government is likely to use rapid antigen kits for testing in containment zones and healthcare settings from June 20, officials said.
The move comes after the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) advocated the use of rapid antigen test kits for diagnosis of COVID-19 in containment zones and healthcare settings in combination with the RT-PCR test.
Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Amit Shah met leaders of various political parties in the national capital.
Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta and AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, sharing details of the meeting, said testing will be increased to 18,000 per day from June 20.
With a surge in COVID-19 cases, Shah had on Sunday announced that testing would be doubled in Delhi in the next two days and subsequently increased by three times.
The meeting was also attended by Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan among other senior officials of the Centre as well as the city government.
Interacting with reporters on Monday, Jain asserted that Delhi was doing “maximum testing earlier” and will continue to do more testing with whatever resources are at its disposal.
“It has been decided to scale up lab testing immediately to effectively contain COVID-19 cases in Delhi. There is no upper limit to send samples to private sector labs, provided they undertake to process the same within the stipulated time frame, that is 24 hours (preferably) and maximum within 48 hours,” the order said.
“As far as increasing testing capacity is concerned, in Delhi most of the lab facilities are under the Centre, so those are being extended to us,” he said.
The Delhi government had designated 42 labs for carrying out COVID-19 tests.
With 1,647 fresh instances, the total number of coronavirus cases in the city reached 42,829. The death toll climbed to 1,400 with 73 fresh fatalities, said a health bulletin.
