Delhi government says health ministry strictly adheres to ICMR guidelines (File)
New Delhi:
The Delhi High Court on Monday asked the AAP government why it was opting for the rapid antigen test (RAT), which has a high rate of false negative results, as the primary test for COVID-19 infection.
He also made it clear to the Delhi government to “strictly” follow the COVID-19 testing guidelines as published by the ICMR and not on its own interpretation.
The High Court also noted that the national capital’s serological survey conducted by the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) indicated that more than 22.86% of the population have passed through the COVID-19 disease without even realizing account that they were infected as they were probably asymptomatic.
Bench of Judges Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad said in such a scenario how the Delhi government can use RAT as a first line test, when its false negative rate was very high, RT / PCR being recommended only for those who were symptomatic.
He added that the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) did not say that testing should be done in this way.
RT / PCR, short for Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction, is a laboratory technique widely used in the diagnosis of genetic diseases and for measuring gene expression in research.
Delhi government’s additional permanent lawyer, Satyakam, told the judiciary that the health department strictly adheres to ICMR guidelines which state that people who test negative for RAT but have flu-like illness (SG) must undergo RT / PCR.
Lawyer Rakesh Malhotra opposed the podium, whose plea for increasing the number of tests in the nation’s capital and obtaining rapid results was heard by the court,
He told the bench that the ICMR only stated that people with ILI and negative RAT test had to go through RT / PCR and that this strategy was not applicable to people with an illness. severe acute respiratory (SARI).
However, the Delhi government had also included SARI in its list of individuals in the high-risk group who must first undergo a RAT.
The ICMR, represented by permanent central government lawyer Anurag Ahluwalia, told the judiciary that it had never recommended SARI for RAT and that it was not similar to the SG.
ICMR’s Dr Nivedita Gupta also told the court that he never said that asymptomatic RAT negative people should not have RT / PCR testing, he only said that symptomatic RAT negative patients take priority. .
