Bengaluru: The much-awaited rapid antibody detection kits are set to arrive in Karnataka on Saturday evening. The state government has put out a list of guidelines for rationale use of the blood tests.
The state will be allocated 12,400 kits out of the 6.5 lakh that the ICMR has received. These kits will be distributed among districts depending on the Zones (Red or Green) that they fall in.
The government of Karnataka has also separately placed an order for 1 lakh kits but are yet to get any confirmation on its delivery. The health and family welfare department has described 4 categories of group for whom these test should be used for.
According to the circular issued Group 1 would consist of COVID-19 hospital healthcare workers as well as non COVID-19 hospital health care workers.
Group 2 consists of government personnel in public contact and personnel in ration shops, milk booths and delivery personnel. Group 3 will includes quarantined individual and Group 4 includes senior citizens and children.
In a separate circular, the government has fixed a price for testing of samples of potential COVID-19 patients by private laboratories at Rs 2,250 for the regular RT-PCR test.
ICMR has approved of 16 laboratories in the state for testing of samples. These include 11 government labs and 5 private labs. There is, however, a need for more private labs to be roped in as the circular noted.
"After discussion with private players we have reached an agreement that government of Karnataka will be paying only Rs 2,250/- per test to the private labs. The Rs 4,500/- was an upper limit set by the ICMR, which included 3000/- for the screening test and 1,500/- for the confirmatory test." clarified Additional Chief Secretary Health, Jawaid Akthar said while briefing media.
The new price will be applicable to all tests sent to private labs by the government alone and not for private individuals who wish to be tested. Those not covered under Ayushman Bharat might have to pay Rs 4.500 for a test in these private labs.
Netizens, however, lauded Karnataka governments efforts to reduce testing prices as it could set an example to show that tests could be done at lower rates.
The government has also said that the number of cases were showing an increase as the number of tests have increased would further increase in the days to come.
On Friday, Karnataka saw an increase of 44 new positive cases taking its cumulative figure to 359 cases. The state has recorded 13 deaths whereas 88 persons have been discharged till date.
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