‘Open testing to private Indian firms’
Gagandeep Kang, director of the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (TSHTI) and the first woman from India to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, says that testing everyone with even mild symptoms of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19), including those with no travel history to countries that have experienced community transmission, will go a long way in isolating people with the illness and arresting its spread. Such measures will also help develop a “disease pyramid” that will make it easier for health workers to administer medical care, Kang, who is also the vice-chair of the board of Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which is promoting Covid-19 vaccine development efforts, told Jayashree Nandi in an interview:
Do we need to do more testing in India to identify community transmission?
We do need to do more testing. I have made that clear. You don’t know what you are dealing with until you test. What is the harm in testing? One potential harm could be that we overload the system and then there will be not enough testing kits left for people who need them the most. But now we have molecular testing for which reagents are available.
Do we have a sufficient number of labs equipped to do testing? These tests are easy to make. Our laboratories have experience with quality control. Every laboratory in India which has national accreditation for quality and does polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests has passed those quality standards. Rapidly expanding the laboratory network which can do the test can reduce the burden on the government’s testing infrastructure. It is doable.
Do you think testing parameters should be revised from just testing travellers and contacts, to include all with symptoms?
Yes. There are over a hundred causes of cough and fever, but in the absence of resources, testing will have to be decided based on availability of testing resources. Some of these cough and fever cases will be from coronavirus. Once you identify them, you can get them to self-isolate and reduce transmission. That’s the advantage of testing those with mild illness. Those with severe illness also need to be identified to understand what is the proportion of people with severe symptoms. A disease pyramid can be built based on this data.
More than anything, it is important for the protection of our healthcare workers.
Do you think costs need to be standardised for testing by private labs?
Open it up to the Indian companies. They are good at reducing cost. They can develop tests that are cheaper.
Do we need to import material to develop testing kits?
At this stage, we need to import protective gear, monitors and ventilators. There are enough PCR machines and we have the ability to make reagents for testing.