ICMR issues news testing guidelines; testing on-demand to be available for all

The Indian Council for Medical Research, on Friday, issued an advisory stating that testing on demand would be made available for all individuals travelling to other countries and other Indian states.

The advisory available on the ICMR website added that a negative test result must be provided by individuals at fixed entry points.

Similarly, individuals willing to get tested could also get themselves tested.

The ICMR, however, put the onus of testing on states, and left it to them to decide on the modalities.

The ICMR also added, “No emergency procedures(including deliveries) could be delayed for lack of tests.”

However, the ICMR provided a leeway stating that samples from the patient seeking emergency aid could be sent for testing of COVID-19 simultaneously.

The ICMR in its advisory stated, that routine surveillance in containment zones and screening points of entry, would be conducted through Rapid Antigen Test(RAT) and RT-PCR or TrueNAT and CBNAAT testing. 

The testing would be conducted on all symptomatic cases, including health workers and frontline workers. Similarly, all asymptomatic patients, with direct and high-risk contacts of a laboratory-confirmed case will also be tested once between day 5 and 10 of coming into contact with the infected.

Tests would be conducted on all asymptomatic high-risk individuals in containment zones.

As per the ICMR guideline, routine surveillance in non-containment areas would be conducted through RT-PCR tests, TrueNat, or CBNAAT tests, and Rapid Antigen tests will be conducted on all symptomatic individuals with a history of international travel in the last 14 days. 

All symptomatic contacts of a person who has tested positive for COVID-19 will also be tested. Similarly, all symptomatic health care workers, frontline workers involved in containment, and mitigation activities will also be tested, as per the ICMR guidelines.

According to the guidelines issued by the ICMR in a hospital setting, all patients of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection and all symptomatic patients would have to be tested either through RT-PCR testing or through Rapid Testing.