Covid-19: New strategies to expand testing at fair price as cases rise

Pvt labs seek approval for protocol on patient sample pooling; faecal testing also considered

As cases continue to surge in India even during a nationwide lockdown, plans are afoot to expand the scope of screening potential coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients by reducing expenditure on reagents required to do the tests. An option to do screening using faecal samples is also being considered.

The idea is to minimise reagent wastage by testing Covid-19-negative patients.

The country’s apex health research body, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has already advised that a new testing strategy be adopted in specific clusters where the ‘positivity rate’ (percentage of cases turning out to be positive upon testing) is less than