Hyderabad: Director of Public Health (DPH), Dr G Srinivasa on Wednesday announced that the rates for RT-PCR tests to diagnose Covid-19 will now be available at an affordable price. He said the rates have been drastically slashed for private laboratories from Rs. 2,200 to Rs. 850. He also informed that the charges for a sample collected at home have also been slashed from Rs. 2,800 to Rs. 1,200.
“The price of consumables has fallen in the market. Be it the rates of the testing kits or PPE kits; both have fallen making testing much cheaper than before for labs. We wanted to shift this benefit to the people. No lab can charge more than the newly announced amount, and the prices are inclusive of PPE kits etc.,” said Dr Srinivas.
The new prices announced are one of the lowest nationally, he said.
People are advised to avail government testing facilities for COVID-19 testing, free of cost. The government facilities where the RT-PCR tests are conducted include Gandhi Medical College, Osmania Medical College, Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Tropical and Communicable Diseases, Institute of Preventive Medicine, ESIC Medical College, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Railway Hospital in Lallaguda. All of these are located in Hyderabad.