Co-opt private sector in fight against Covid-19

The World Health Organisation is quite clear on how to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. The most effective way to prevent infections and save lives is breaking the chains of transmission, says its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Once again, our message is: test, test, test,” he said the other day, underlining the importance of testing. The Government of India and the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) seem to have taken a cue from the WHO advisory and moved fast to incorporate private labs to conduct Covid-19 tests as per the ICMR guidelines. It has allowed 73 private laboratories to take up the test other than the 52 that are in the government sector now, taking the total number of testing labs to 125. The tests must be done free of cost, as per the ICMR advisory.

While the government move must be appreciated, one must keep in mind the fact that India continues to be one of the least tested among the 170 Covidaffected countries. As per ICMR data, a total of 12,351 samples from 11,461 individuals have been tested as on March 18. This amounts to 8.95 tests per million population. True, the figure is improving: it was five per million population on March 13, but is woefully inadequate compared with the other nations such as Italy and South Korea who have four-figure numbers for the same. Only nations such as the United States, which have been roundly criticised for their inadequate response, have figures similar to that of India. The ICMR testing strategy, which was released on Tuesday, advises that all asymptomatic people who have undertaken international travel, all contacts of laboratory-confirmed positive cases and healthcare workers managing respiratory distress or severe acute respiratory illness should be tested only if they become symptomatic with fever, cough, difficulty in breathing and so on. It remains to be seen if limiting the tests to symptomatic people is a wise idea. It is suggested that one of the reasons why South Korea was able to limit the casualties to the minimum despite having the large number of affected people was that it went in for higher number of tests: it was 4,099 per million people as on March 9. The ICMR has said it reviews the situation frequently. The research body of the government must factor in the data available from such countries and revise the strategy accordingly.

The permission granted to private laboratories to test should be seen only as the first step to co-opt the sector into the fight that India is undertaking against Covid-19. This is not a challenge the government alone can take up; India stands nowhere in per capita availability of qualified medical professionals or hospital beds compared to some of the worst-affected European nations. Still, Spain chose to nationalise all its private hospitals to meet the exigency. India must now prepare a plan to face the impending challenge, marshalling all the resources at the command of the government and the private sector. And enhancing testing facilities is only elementary. As the WHO chief said, we cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected.

This is not a challenge the government alone can take up; India stands nowhere in per capita availability of qualified medical professionals or hospital beds compared to some of the worst-affected European nations