With the second phase of nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) nearing an end, Karnataka is looking to increase its daily testing count to over 5,000 samples per day.
Officials of the Karnataka Health Department suggested that they are looking at all means to increase the testing rate. Karnataka has already been testing more than five times the number of tests that it has been since last week.
While on April 13, the state did 766 tests, 15 days later, on April 28, the state carried out a total of 4,827 tests, which has been the highest for a single day so far.
Cumulatively, by Wednesday, the state had crossed the mark of 50,000 (50,512) testing and is second highest only to Andhra Pradesh among the south Indian states. Andhra Pradesh has done 80,334 tests till date while Maharashtra, which has the highest number of cases in the country, did 1,29,931.
Speaking to TNM, Dr CN Manjunath, the nodal officer for testing for COVID-19 in Karnataka, said, “Since Tuesday, we have been inching towards 5,000 tests per day. Slowly, we will increase this further. Right now, there are enough RT-PCR (Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) test kits to last for 10 days to carry on testing at the same rate. There is a crisis everywhere globally and within the country but there is no reason to worry as we have been procuring them at least five days in advance."
Dr Manjunath said that for the testing purpose, the primary and secondary contacts are the priority, and the government has been gradually expanding testing to people in high-risk categories (people with flu and respiratory illness).
“So the scope of testing is increasing already on this basis. We have also started doing random testing in the state, starting with Bengaluru in two containment zones. We want to do random testing of 50-100 people in each hotspot,” he added.
Dr Manjunath further stated that the state will use Tuberculosis (TB) testing machines for COVID-19 to ramp up the testing capacity. Similar methods have also been discussed in neighbouring Kerala and other states. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had approved the use of these diagnostic machines for coronavirus tests.
“We have started testing through this CBNAAT (cartridge-based nucleic acid amplification tests) method in Gadag district and with these machines, we can do around 30-40 tests per day. We will soon start this in Vijayapura and Bagalkot districts in three to four days,” he told TNM.
The CBNAAT testing is for screening purpose, while only RT-PCR is the only established diagnostic test.
‘Rapid antibody testing may resume’
The Karnataka government, like other state governments in the country, is doing away with rapid antibody testing following the ICMR directive.
According to Dr Manjunath, even before the central government directive, Karnataka had decided not to carry on with the rapid antibody testing as they had very low accuracy during the validation exercise carried out by the department in NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences).
“For the time being, all rapid antibody-based testing is put on hold. We are hearing some rapid testing kits made by South Korean and Netherlands-based manufacturers are giving good results. So we have asked some 5,000 sample strips from these companies for the purpose of validation. Although no antibody test kits will give 100% accuracy, if we can have better results, maybe around 75% efficacy, then we can take a call later,” he told TNM.