Delhi govt issues notice to labs for defying ICMR guidelines; submitting Covid tests late

Amid the rapidly increasing coronavirus cases in the national capital, the Delhi government has issued notices and launched action against several private and government labs for allegedly flouting the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines for COVID testing. According to sources, at least six laboratories have been asked to explain alleged delays in test results. 

Delhi has recorded a single-day spike of 1,513 cases which took the COVID-19 tally past the 23,000-mark on Wednesday, and the death toll climbed to 606, authorities said. The previous highest single-day spike of 1,298 cases was recorded on Tuesday.

This development comes after a day when the Delhi government issued fresh testing guidelines for hospitals and ICMR-approved labs. The guidelines prescribed by ICMR states that all labs involved in COVID-19 testing are supposed to send the reports in 48 hours however these labs were not sharing the results on time,.

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The Delhi government issued notices to numerous labs. The officials from the health department also directed CDMOs through district administration not to send any samples to these labs

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The government officials informed the pendency rate of a few labs has increased over the last few days and this issue was also raised by health officials in a meeting with Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on Tuesday. 

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COVID-19 cases in Delhi

The Delhi health department in its bulletin said that the death toll due to coronavirus has risen to 606 and the number of cases has mounted to 23,645 in the national capital. A total of 50 fatalities were reported on June 2, the bulletin said, adding that these lives were lost between April 15 and June 1.

It, however, said the cumulative death figure refers to fatalities where the primary cause of death was found to be COVID-19, according to a report of the Death Audit Committee on the basis of the case-sheets received from various hospitals. On Tuesday, the number of coronavirus cases in Delhi stood at 22,132, including 556 deaths. India's total number of Coronavirus cases, meanwhile, has risen to 216,919, of which 106,737 are active. 6,075 people have died so far, while 104,107 have recovered.

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