India s covid collapse, part 4: How the delay in test results accelerated spread of the virus Sonali Acharjee
When the World Health Organization declared Covid a global pandemic in early March last year, India had 14 RT-PCR testing labs. By end-March, the country had added 106 Virus Research & Diagnostic Laboratories (VRDLs). Far behind countries such as South Korea and the US initially in terms of the number of tests, India beefed up its testing capacity quickly. By April 2020, we had 166 labs for testing and by July 1,600. The number of daily tests shot up from 1,500 in April to 200,000 in June, and 1 million in October. By the time the first wave subsided in November, India had 2,257 Covid testing labs, the average wait time for a result was 12-24 hours.
ISSUE DATE: May 17, 2021
UPDATED: May 7, 2021 23:36 IST
Staff at the Ghazipur crematorium in Delhi cart in fresh logs as
funeral pyres burn all around them (Rajk Raj/ Getty Images)
The second wave of Covid-19 is still cresting but by now we have all been touched by its terrors, and all too many of us by its sorrows and the dismal realisation that we are in the midst of a recurring nightmare, a tragedy foretold. Here, we expose the sorry tale of neglect, apathy and failure of our political leadership. The institutional collapse and bureaucratic cowardice that facilitated super-spreader religious festivals and the political carnival of an eight-phase election campaign even as the second wave of a pandemic was breaking. The narcissism that enabled our leadership to ignore the warnings of expert groups. Their inability to form bipartisan alliances between the Centre and the states in the middle of a national calamity. Now that some of the loudest voices in the land have gone quiet, t
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India’s laboratories are struggling to deal with an influx of coronavirus test requests as the country tackles record-breaking numbers of infections and deaths each day.
Thousands of anxious people every day are rushing to book appointments with labs and hospitals for tests to find out whether they have contracted the deadly virus.
India has had a record-breaking number of infection cases during its second wave, with the country’s total caseload passing 18.3 million, the second highest after the US.
More than 200,000 people have died and many health experts say the official numbers are the tip of the iceberg.
Not just RT-PCR, Delhi faces acute shortage of other essential Covid blood tests indiatoday.in - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from indiatoday.in Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Coronavirus: Diagnostic labs say they need more supplies of material used in COVID-19 testing
New Delhi:
A large diagnostic chain has sounded caution over an impending shortage of material used in testing for COVID-19 amid a surge in cases across the country in what is now being called a deadly second wave.
Thousands and thousands of people have been scrambling every day to send their samples for Covid testing. This surge in testing volume has added to the pressure of diagnostics labs across towns and cities. As the city grapples for oxygen and hospital beds, the latest update regarding shortage of supplies of essential testing reagents for inflammatory marker tests such as IL6 (interleukin 6), D Dimer and CRP is becoming another problematic area, Dr Arjun Dang of Dr Dangs Lab said in a statement.