West Bengal accuses ICMR-NICED of providing defective coronavirus COVID-19 test kits :

At a time when the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly spreading across different parts of West Bengal, the state government on Sunday accused the central lab - ICMR-NICED of  providing defective test kits. 

At a time when the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly spreading across different parts of West Bengal, the state government on Sunday (April 19, 2020) accused the central lab - ICMR-NICED of providing defective test kits.

In a series of posts on micro blogging site Twitter, the State Heath and Family Welfare Department accused the ICMR-NICED for the delay in getting COVID-19 test results via the alleged defective kits. 

“The apparently defective test kits supplied by ICMR-NICED, Kolkata are resulting in a high number of repeat/confirmatory tests and causing delays and other problems at a time when we are battling a pandemic. This is an issue that ICMR needs to look into immediately,” the tweet read. 

The Department of Health and Family Welfare also claimed that the COVID-19 test kits provided by ICMR-NICED two weeks ago are throwing up ‘inconclusive’ reports hence the same samples have to be tested twice. 

“The testing kits supplied by ICMR-NICED about two weeks ago have started to throw up a large number of ‘inconclusive’ results, necessitating a repeat test run for confirmation, thereby causing a delay in the generation of the final test report,” another tweet read. 

The state government also alleged that till the time the test kits were being sent directly from National Institute of Virology, Pune there was no problem until the kits were routed through ICMR-NICED.