Telangana govt. suspends private lab testing for COVID-19

Hyderabad: Blaming private labs for the sharp rise in the number of positive cases in Telangana, the state government has temporarily suspended private laboratories from undertaking COVID-19 tests.

Earlier the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had permitted 18 private laboratories and 10 government-run laboratories to conduct Covid-19 diagnostic tests in Hyderabad.

Telangana government accusing certain private labs of contaminating the samples and noting disparity in numbers, suspended private labs to temporarily suspend Covid-19 tests. They were also accused of violating the testing protocols and lacking infrastructure. The team set up by the government to conduct inspection reportedly detected major discrepancies in handling of Covid-19 tests.

Telangana on Friday recorded the highest-ever single day Covid-19 positive cases of 1,892 that took the total tally to 20,462 positives to date.