COVID 19 pandemic testing time - Crisis or opportunity in disguise for India?

Abstract

The current SARS-CoV-2 infection or the COVID 19 pandemic has taken the world by storm, where the best health care systems in the world seem to be overwhelmed and still this virus is eluding us as we are compelled to explore the preventive and/or therapeutic interventions to control the disease outbreak as well as to prevent deaths. In parallel to clinical services, laboratories have been overwhelmed with task of keeping up with ever increasing demand for testing. Real time PCR detection of COVID19 is the gold standard method, however, has certain shortcomings in terms of availability of infrastructure, reagents, consumables, and technical expertise. All these have paved the way for the alternative testing algorithms and strategies. Countries like United States and Italy have struggled with these issues. India has been criticized for not testing enough and not adopting the right policy, but has been managing the disease within its resource limited health care system to a fair extent. The present review provides the Indian perspective of COVID 19 testing, the journey from not testing enough in the past to a vast expanse and depth of testing in present time.

Keywords: Biosafetylevel; Guidelines; NAAT; Point of care test; Population; Quality; Rapid test.