Indian Council of Medical Research has written to states asking them to renegotiate COVID19 testing prices with private laboratories
Indian Council of Medical Research has asked states to renegotiate price of the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID19) tests in light of availability of kits and other testing materials that are made in India.
In a letter to states on Monday, Dr Balram Bhargava, secretary department of health research wrote: “Now, testing supplies are also stabilizing and many of you have started procuring such kits from local market. Due to varied options of testing materials/ kits including indigenous ones, the prices are becoming competitive and are undergoing reduction. As you are fully aware, COV|D19 has been declared as a pandemic and ICMR continuously advocates aggressive testing of lLl symptomatic persons for which RT-PCR test is considered as Gold Standard. ln this backdrop and keeping in view the evolving prices of the testing commodities, the earlier suggested upper ceiling of INR 4,500 vide letter dated 17/3/2020 may not be applicable now and therefore all State governments/ UT Administrations are advised to negotiate with private labs and fix up mutually agreeable prices for samples being sent by the government and also for private individuals desirous of testing by these labs.”
” Due to varied options of testing materials/ kits including indigenous ones, the prices are becoming competitive and are undergoing reduction”
The price cap of Rs 4500 was also set by ICMR in March when most kits etc had to be imported. However even then some states had already negotiated lower rates with the private laboratories.
Bhargava wrote in his letter: “At the beginning of COVID19 pandemic, there was a global crisis of testing kits and reagents as lndia was heavily reliant on imported products for molecular detection of viruses. As such, in-mid March, 2O2O, no rates for RT-PCR test for Coronavirus was available for reference in the country. Keeping in view the cost of imported kits and efforts involved in carrying out the test, ICMR suggested the upper limit of a single test as -lNR 4,500 vide its letter dated 17 /3/2o2o.”
