Faulty test kits: NICED director goes on back foot, admits technical issues

Kolkata: Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) Director Dr Shanta Dutta who had trained her guns on the Mamata Banerjee government a few days ago for allegedly carrying out 'less number of swab tests' and had hurled criticism at it, apparently backtracked on Monday, after allegations of supplying defective testing kits surfaced against the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-NICED.

ICMR-NICED, authorised bodies to provide COVID-19 testing kits to the state government, have now been accused of supplying 'faulty' kits which resulted in 'inconclusive' reports.

The state Health department in a series of tweets on Sunday alleged that due to the supply of apparently defective kits there has been a delay in testing and it also lead to repeated tests. The NICED director has admitted that there may be some technical issues. NICED is the nodal body of the ICMR.

Dr Dutta's statement raised many eyebrows last week as her criticism came at a time when the entire country is battling a pandemic. The NICED Director, however, shrugged off her responsibilities on Monday saying that she has no role to play as the testing kits are supplied by the ICMR. "It is not possible for NICED to check the quality of testing kits delivered by the ICMR," Dr Dutta said.

Dr Dutta who had questioned the alleged low testing rate for COVID-19 in Bengal and denied any shortage of kits in a series of interviews to the media last week, said on Monday that ICMR distributes the kits through NICED and hence the matter must be raised with the ICMR officials.

She also said that NICED supplies kits to Odisha and

the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, besides Bengal. It is delivering the kits which they receive from the ICMR, Dutta added.

Meanwhile, the official also pointed out that the kits were not standardised and hence

the reports were inconclusive. It is not possible for any medical colleges to standardise the kits.

Earlier, the kits were being assembled at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune. But later the ICMR started importing ready-made kits and delivering them to 16 nodal agencies across the

country as the situation aggravated.

The state government had urged the ICMR to investigate the issue immediately as the delays in testing have resulted in confirmatory tests thereby slowing down the battle against the pandemic.