With the State entering a crucial phase of the pandemic, the government is fully banking on the private sector to ramp up COVID-19 testing in the State.
The testing policy in the State is set to be revised so that any individual who wants to be tested will be able to walk into a private hospital or laboratory and get himself tested for COVID-19.
At present, rapid antigen tests are being conducted in private sector labs and hospitals based on a prescription from a registered medical practitioner.
The government had earlier modified the Indian Council of Medical Research stipulation which allowed only hospitals with NABH/NABL (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers/ National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) accreditation to do COVID-19 testing so that even smaller hospitals and laboratories with adequate biomedical waste management facilities and sound infection control protocols can do rapid antigen tests. While 99 private hospitals/laboratories are currently registered to do rapid antigen testing for COVID-19 in the State, the number is expected to increase to 300 by the end of this month.
The increased reliance on the private sector to enhance COVID-19 testing in the State has become necessary as large-scale testing requires sustained interventions and resources, according to a new document released by the Health Department detailing the State’s testing strategy and the policy changes envisaged for the next few months.
Currently, 80% of the tests are being conducted by the government and only 20% in the private sector. For tests kits alone, the government has been spending around ₹1.7 crore per day, given the current rate of testing.
The government hopes that capacity building and enhanced testing in the private sector will go off smoothly as the State has already fixed the ceiling price for all tests in the private sector, established systems for real-time reporting of tests, and issued necessary advisories related to testing.
The State is also fast-tracking approvals and permissions for Truenat and GeneXpert testing for the private sector so that another 50 Trunat/GeneXpert labs will be functional in the private sector by the end of the month. Currently, there are 25 RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) labs, 16 Xpert labs, 37 Truenat labs, and 220 antigen testing labs in Kerala. The State is currently doing about 22,000 to 25,000 tests daily now. This is equal to 733 tests per million population per day.
WHO suggestion
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also suggested around 10-30 tests per confirmed case as a general benchmark of adequate testing. Kerala is performing 30 tests per confirmed case. Kerala’s test positivity rate is 3.3 % and well within the range — ideally less than 5% and not more than 10%.
