Idle capacities at labs as 'gold standard' tests for detecting Covid fall

Fewer RT-PCR tests than capacity at many places; non-Covid tests pick up

As Covid-19 cases in the country decline, so has the testing — down from almost 10 million to around 700,000 a day — leaving diagnostic labs with under-utilised equipment and manpower, that they ramped up in the wake of the pandemic.
 
Many labs are now repurposing the RT-PCR technology to test diseases such as HIV, Tuberculosis, Hepatitis with the demand for non-Covid-19 tests catching up. While there has been a pick-up in demand owing to rising cases in states such as Maharashtra, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, testing labs in most parts of the country are seeing a drop in