No need to conduct RT-PCR test for inter-state travel: ICMR advisory

The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) has, in its recent COVID-19 testing advisory for the second wave, recommended removing the need for RT-PCR test in healthy individuals travelling interstate. The RT-PCR test for people who are healthy and travelling domestic may be removed completely to help lessen the load on laboratories.

ICMR advisory also states a number of crucial things, such as:
1) The Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) or RT-PCR should not repeat for a person who has already tested positive once.

2) No testing required for people who have recovered from the virus at the time of hospital discharge.
3) If a person has any flu or COVID symptoms, they must avoid non-essential travel completely; for interstate travel, asymptomatic individuals must follow all the essential travel rules and behaviour accordingly.

The advisory reads , “To meet the overwhelming testing demand, it will be prudent to upscale testing using Rapid Antigen Tests.”

The advisory also emphasised on mobile testing laboratories available on GeM portal now. It said that states must increase their RT-PCR testing through mobile systems.

At present, the overall test positivity rate is more than 20 percent in India.