SC order to ensure free tests in private labs causes fear of plunge in testing

As of April 6, India has conducted only 0.07 tests for COVID-19 per thousand population, in contrast to South Korea that has tested 9.06 cases. In this scenario, the Supreme Court on April 8 directed the Centre to ensure that testing facilities for coronavirus are available for free for all citizens. This has left private labs to offer free tests.

But experts in the health sector feel that there is a risk of the number of tests falling further drastically, as private labs too face a financial crisis like firms in any other sector amid the COVID-19 outbreak and the nationwide lockdown imposed due to it.

Earlier, private labs were charging around ₹4,500 for reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test for the disease. These tests had already been conducted for free in government labs and hospitals.

With the Supreme Court making such a direction and government not announcing any financial assistance for private labs yet, those in the sector are planning to come up with a joint strategy to deal with the issue.

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Owners of private labs that have been allowed to conduct tests for COVID-19 have approached lawyers and even the government, Arvind Lal, chairman and managing director of Dr Lal PathLabs, told Hindustan Times.

Calling the move impractical to be implemented, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, executive chairperson of Biocon Limited, a biopharmaceutical company, tweeted, “Supreme Court Orders All Coronavirus Tests To Be Made Free – a judgement that will severely affect testing. Pvt labs simply cannot be expected to run their businesses on credit (SIC).”

Fearing that the SC order would lead to a plunge in COVID-19 testing, Shamika Ravi, a former member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, says it would be a bigger problem. The only focus should be on increasing testing facilities to combat the disease, she told NDTV.