Coronavirus: In India, over 100 people have been tested positive (File)
India is making a terrible mistake of not testing enough people, warn many health experts as they assess how the government is handling the coronavirus outbreak.
There could be thousands and thousands of people who are infected at the moment -what is referred to as "community transmission" - and we just don't know. These infected but not tested/known people are currently infecting thousands of others. South Korea's success in fighting the virus is being attributed to the amazing numbers of people that they have tested, including through drive-in test centres.
Here are the steps that India needs to immediately take to make testing widely accessible:
1) Allow the private sector to test. Currently, private labs are banned from conducting these tests after the government invoked an 1896 Act, which was designed and enacted to tackle the plague.
2) India has also banned the use of many international testing kits that are in use abroad. These tests are still being checked. Many of these testing kits (for example by Roche and others)are being used in the US and Europe.
3) The current practice of people standing in a queue, at government hospitals, must stop. While waiting in a queue, people are potentially infecting each other. Tests must be done by collecting the nasal swabs from people's homes. This needs huge numbers of collectors. Only by including the private sector can India provide this vital service.
4) Testing must be made free. The government needs to immediately set aside large amount of funds to ensure this.
5)The government must lift the ban on infected patients being admitted at private hospitals. In fact, the government should insist that private hospitals create isolation wards and take in coronavirus patients.
