Bengal pins COVID-19 testing delays on 'defective kits' from ICMR, urges immediate probe

After being on the receiving end of the criticisms for a low testing rate in the state, the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government has now put the onus on the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (ICMR-NICED) for the state's low testing capacity by saying that ICMR-NICED supplied defective COVID-19 test kits.

The state's health department in a series of tweets has accused the ICMR and said that there was no problem when the testing kits were procured from the National Institute of Virology, Pune but the problems surfaced when they started receiving kits from ICMR.

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This accusation seems to be in response to NICED which is a nodal testing facility of ICMR in Kolkata. At the beginning of last week, ICMR had said that the state government is not sending enough samples for COVID-19 testing. Dr Shanta Dutta, Director, ICMR-NICED had said that there was a big drop in the number of samples sent by the government. "If they send more samples, we are able to test more. I think sample collection has not been as per the recommendation. So number tests being done in Bengal is also less,” Dr Dutta had said.

The row

As COVID-19 continues to grip the country and the world, a major row erupted has in West Bengal, with many in the medical fraternity and opposition parties saying that the state was reporting fewer cases as only a minuscule of the population is getting tested for the deadly virus. The state has reported 310 cases of Coronavirus, while 12 of them have succumbed to the virus.