Addressing its daily briefing on COVID-19, head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at ICMR Raman R Gangakhedkar said, "We got a complaint of less detection from one state. So we spoke to three states and found that a lot of variation is there in the accuracy of test results of positive samples, in some places it is 6 percent while others it is 71 percent."
He further added, "This is not a good thing because when such a huge variation is seen we need to investigate further even if it is the first generation of the test. This disease is only 3.5-month-old so all technologies will be refined over time but we can't ignore these findings,".
He stated that over the next two days the ICMR will be sending eight expert teams on the field to validate the results.
"Hence, all states are requested to not use the rapid testing kits on the field for the next two days," Gangakhedkar said.
Around 5 lakh Rapid Test kits were procured by the government and distributed around the country after the ICMR recommended that every resident in Coronavirus hotspots or areas with a large number of cases will be tested for the virus.
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It was decided to use fast-track kits as the regular RT-PCR tests are slow and have to be conducted in laboratories. Many states in the country do not have adequate testing facilities.
However, several states, including Rajasthan, have now complained about the Rapid Test kits. The Rajasthan government has decided to stop the use of rapid test kits from China as they were showing only 5.4 per cent accuracy in testing COVID-19 cases, according to Health Minister Raghu Sharma, here on Tuesday.