The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has approved only three self-test kits for Covid-19 so far and would evaluate more proposals in the coming months, a senior scientist with the apex research body said.

“As of now, we are sticking with three self-test kits. If we get a suitable proposal, we will approve it,” senior epidemiologist Dr Samiran Panda, who heads the ICMR’s epidemiology and communicable diseases division, said.

ICMR has so far approved three self-test kits — CoviSelf from Pune based Mylab, Panbio Covid-19 test from US based Abbott and Gujarat based Meril Diagnostics’ CoviFind — while three others have been validated, but are yet to be approved.

 

Maharashtra health officials said 1.18 lakh self-test kits had been used in the state between June and September 8.

Hasmukh Rawal, MD of Mylab, said the response has been good. Pathology laboratories, , said these kits could only be used by tech-savvy people as the it required nasal swab collection and uploading the results via the app.

Talking about the kits, Rohit Jain, the secretary of Practising Pathologists’ Society, said, “If the result is false positive or false negative, who will take the medico legal liability?”