121 new laboratories to be active by March 22, says ICMR DG

New Delhi, March 17:

Indian Council of Medical Research, ICMR Tuesday said, they are expanding their laboratories and at present, there are a total of 72 functional laboratories in the ICMR system. ICMR have also engaged other government laboratories which include CSIR and DRDO. Forty-nine of these labs will start testing by the end of this week.

Briefing media in New Delhi in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak, Director General of ICMR  Dr Balram Bhargava said, 121 new laboratories will be active by 22nd of March. He said, ICMR is setting up two rapid testing laboratories at different places which will have the capacity to test 1,400 samples per day. These will become operational by the end of this week. He said, ICMR is also engaging with high-quality private laboratories, that include laboratories accredited with National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL, to understand the modalities to increase access to COVID-19 tests while ensuring appropriate safeguards.

Mr Bhargava said, all asymptomatic patients who have taken international flights in the past 14 days should get tested if they develop symptoms. He said, India is in Stage-2, which is the local transmission. There are four stages of the disease. Stage-1 is getting imported cases, Stage-2 is a local transmission, Stage-3 is community transmission and Stage-4 is when it turns into an epidemic.