On-demand Covid testing turns business as companies return to work

Travellers and corporate sector are turning to labs, which are in turn facilitating quick tests

The government may still be contemplating allowing on-demand Covid tests, but private sector companies from hospitality to aviation, which are desperate to get back on their feet, have worked out arrangements with accredited laboratories to enable testing for anyone who requires it, at a small price.

“Hotels, airlines and embassies are in talks with us for tying up for testing. Since they bring us so much business in terms of guests and travellers, we give them some margin for testing their own employees,” says the manager of a Delhi-based Covid testing laboratory who does not wish to be named.

The labs also arrange for prescription, at a price starting at Rs 250, especially in cities such as Delhi where an RT-PCR test cannot be conducted without a doctor’s recommendation. Home collection facilities are also made available for such corporate clients to avoid any hassle. The test reports are usually given within 24 hours.

Until August, states such as Uttarakhand, for instance, gave an option to upload a Covid-negative report when a person applied for a “lockdown pass”. However, in the latest unlock guidelines, the Centre had directed states that no restrictions should be imposed on inter-state and intra-state movement of people and goods.

Several hotels in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, for instance, were not allowing a guest unless the person was armed with a Covid-negative test report and had got a pass from the state government. So, some of the hotels tied up with labs approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research to ease the process of getting a Covid test done.

A Delhi-based professional, who recently went on a holiday to Uttarakhand, says that his hotel had asked for a mandatory Covid-negative report before check-in. “Negative RT-PCR result meant I did not have to quarantine for 14 days. I found a doctor online to write a prescription. Labs are also aware that we need to get tested for travel, and not because we have symptoms,” he says.

“Cities such as Mumbai allow on-demand testing — for a reason. That is the way to go forward. There is an increased demand, especially from people who need to travel,” says Harsh Mahajan, managing director, CARINGdx@Mahajan Imaging, New Delhi. “We only do it if a person has a prescription,” he added.

For laboratories, the share of such tests is gradually going up as business activity is starting to resume. Most labs are seeing 15 to 20 per cent of their total business coming from the corporate sector.

“This demand will increase because now that the airports are opening up, especially for international travel, countries, particularly in the Gulf, have made it mandatory for all travellers to get an RT-PCR test 96 hours before the flight,” says Anand K, chief executive officer, SRL Diagnostics.

Will allowing on-demand testing put a stress on testing capacity?

Experts say that there needs to be a balance between prescription-based and on-demand testing so that the turnaround time for a test report is not delayed for the patients in need.

“It might become difficult if on-demand testing happens on a high scale. We have ramped up operations in many labs from 12 hours a day to 24 hours to ensure timely results,” Anand adds.

Some labs are also suggesting that the government should encourage the use of cartridge-based nucleic acid amplification test, or CBNAAT, at least for on-demand testing. “It is more expensive, but it is also faster and does not require the technical expertise of an RT-PCR test. It should be made more accessible,” Mahajan says. He adds that the number of samples that can be processed at one time is limited. “Hence this test can be used in those cases where we need quick reports within an hour.”

V K Paul, member-health, Niti Aayog, had said at a press conference in August that testing is practically available on-demand in many ways. “We will review looking at the capacity and access to people. We are almost there. We have to make sure resources are used for the very best purpose. Frivolous use is not desirable,” he had said.

India has, meanwhile, ramped up its testing capacity to over 11 lakh tests per day and has conducted over 4.6 crore tests so far.