The state had earlier made a deal with a Singaporean company, which was later delisted by the Centre.
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Almost a month has passed since the Karnataka government announced its decision to use rapid antibody kits for COVID-19 testing. Though the government had placed orders for the kits in March, issues with the approval process may have led to delays. The government has yet to roll out the first phase of testing since the Singapore company chosen by the state did not get approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). “We are mapping the whole programme regarding whom to use these kits for and we will be able to start within one or two days,” Dr CN Manjunath, the nodal officer for testing in the state, told TNM on Tuesday. “We have so far received 12,500 kits from the Centre about two days ago. We expect another 50,000 by this evening, which the state government has arranged. We are expecting another 1 lakh tomorrow,” he continued. The kits are used to detect the presence of coronavirus antibodies so as to determine if a person has been exposed to the virus. Manjushree, a state health department official in charge of procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic, said that one lakh kits will be supplied by Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech Co. Ltd. and 50,000 kits will be bought from Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics. These two Chinese companies have also been supplying rapid testing kits to other states as well. However, the Rajasthan government stated on Tuesday that it will stop the use of rapid tests since they were showing invalid results. The kits were procured from Guangzhou city in China. While it is unclear which company’s kits were being used in Rajasthan, most states have been supplied by two Chinese companies — Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics and Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech, the same two supplying to the Karnataka government. At the end of March, the Karnataka government had chosen Sensing Self Pvt. Ltd., a Singaporean company, to supply the kits. However, that company was subsequently delisted by the central government. An official interim advisory with regard to kits was issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on April 2. A detailed testing protocol for using these kits in hotspot areas was also released by the ICMR on April 17. On the same day, the Karnataka government released a circular identifying four priority groups for whom these kits will be used: Group 1 includes COVID-19 hospital healthcare workers and non-COVID-19 hospital healthcare workers. Group 2 is government personnel in public contact and special groups in public contact such as those working in ration shops, milk shops, volunteers and delivery personnel. Group 3 is individuals who have been quarantined. Group 4 is vulnerable groups of 60 years and above, children and others. Other Indian states, such as Tamil Nadu have already started using rapid tests, even though Karnataka had made the decision to do so earlier. Officials had previously said that while legacy tests take at least 7 to 8 hours for the results, the rapid kits allow doctors to get results within 15 minutes by drawing blood from a patient’s finger with a pin prick. The cost of the devices are also roughly about 25% of the conventional tests. Further, officials said following the ICMR protocols, every patient will be declared COVID-19 positive only after they test positive via the legacy testing, even if they test positive in the antibody testing. Inputs from Theja Ram
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