India suspends Covid-19 antibody tests as accuracy concerns grow

The Indian government has ordered a pause in coronavirus-antibody testing owing to accuracy concerns, health officials said on Wednesday. As India’s tally of cases nears 20,000, this will complicate the fight against the epidemic.

India trails many countries in conducting the standard swab tests to determine the presence of Covid-19 because of limited testing equipment and protective gear for medical workers.

Earlier this month, health authorities approved blood tests for coronavirus antibodies as a faster way to bolster the screening effort, and ordered half a billion testing kits from China. However, Dr Raman Gangakhedkar, the chief of epidemiology and communicable diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research, has requested a temporary stop to the tests because they were returning conflicting results.

To date, India has detected 19,983 cases of novel coronavirus, after an increase of nearly 1,000 in one day. There have been 640 deaths, and officials say the rate of infections could rise once the nearly six-week lockdown is lifted on May 3, according to Reuters.