The Karnataka government's Directorate of Health, has withdrawn its notification regarding COVID testing in government and private sector laboratories, on July 4.
This means that now, the private labs can tell the result of a COVID test to the patient, and need not send in the testing information to the district administration. However, they needed to continue uploading the information on the ICMR portal, the withdrawal notice said.
The withdrawal added that “However all Government and Private Laboratories should upload the details of COVID positive and negative cases in the ICMR portal daily as mentioned in point (2) of 2nd para.”
The government in its previous order said that labs cannot convey result status to the individual. It had however said that results need to be uploaded in the ICMR Portal daily and should be submitted to the concerned District Surveillance Officers, COVID Surveillance officer, BBMP, Bengaluru & State Surveillance Unit, Bengaluru.
Copies of the withdrawal were sent to all officials and laboratories in the state which are undertaking COVID testing.
In view of evolving COVID 19 pandemic situation in the State, laboratory capacity has been expanded to more than 75 laboratories in both Public and Private sector.
Karnataka on Saturday evening reported that 17,592 samples were tested in the state, and 1,839 samples tested positive. Thus far, 21,549 cases of coronavirus have been reported in the state.