India has potential to increase Covid testing 10-fold: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

India, which in March imposed the largest nationwide lockdown globally in response to the pandemic, was taken by surprise by the surging number of infections when it started removing the restrictions

India has the ability to aggressively ramp up coronavirus testing capacity, a move that will help it check a wave of new active cases hitting hospitals and skirt an economically unviable lockdown, according to the head of one of the country’s largest drug makers.

With pooled testing that can include as many as 10 people in one go, India “could potentially scale up its testing 10-fold,” said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, the founder and chairman of Biocon Ltd. Pooled testing increases the number of people that can be tested using the same amount of resources but it works well in clusters with low