Till now no "major report of discordant test results" has been reported by COVID-19 testing laboratories, Minister of State for Health Ashwini Choubey told Rajya Sabha on Monday.
He was responding to a question on whether capping the price of COVID-19 tests has forced several labs to use relatively inexpensive kits raising the risk of false negative and compromising data.
Keeping in view fast tracking of approval of test kits, increasing indigenous manufacturing, inclusion of alternative platforms like CBNAAT and GeneXperts, improved market availability at competitive prices, the Union health ministry has advised state governments and union territory (UT) administrations to negotiate with private labs and fix mutually agreeable prices for COVID-19 testing, Choubey said.