'Rules are different for public labs as compared to private labs'

Ameera Shah, promoter and managing Director of Metropolis Healthcare, says private labs have been at the forefront of medical testing.

Private laboratory chain Metropolis Healthcare fears a "negative influence" if state governments cap the price on reverse trasncription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test to detect Covid-19 far below the originally proposed price of Rs 4,500 per test. Ameera Shah, promoter and managing Director of Metropolis Healthcare, tells Sohini Das in an email interview India must scale up testing for coronavirus.

There is a tendency to cap prices for tests. How do you see that?

Currently, there are three approved technologies for conducting the confirmatory test for COVID 19: TruNAT, GeneXpert (CBNAAT) and RT PCR test. Both TruNAT and GeneXpert incur