Covid testing at private labs to remain on hold

Resumption of testing for Covid-19 in private testing labs in the city will take a few more days with the health department authorities carrying out an exercise to establish basic hygiene practices and standard operating protocols in these facilities. The staff working in such private labs will also to be trained in the appropriate method of sample collection, storage and testing.

According to health department officials, the private labs, except a couple functioning from top tier corporate hospitals, will remain closed for at least another three days. When they resume work, they will be initially supervised by government officials to ensure that the newly-trained staff will abide by the protocols.

It may be recalled that the state government had previously expressed displeasure over the conditions in some of the private labs and their operating procedures, including mistakes being made in uploading data in the state government and ICMR test data portals.

Telangana has 17 Indian Council for Medical Research approved private testing labs, in addition to nine governmentrun ICMR approved labs for conducting the tests. While testing at private labs is currently on hold, all government labs will continue to conduct the tests.

It was in the last week of June that the health department issued notices to private labs found flouting ICMR guidelines in the entire process, or parts of the process of collecting and testing samples form suspected Covid-19 individuals and ordered their closure for a few days.

After inspections by four teams of senior officials, it was decided that many of the private labs required near overhaul and the staff needed training.