With COVID-19 cases declining in India, RT-PCR testing for the highly infectious disease is also witnessing a dip in demand. Private diagnostic chains claim the revenues are expected to die down for COVID testing as majority of people are looking at home-based tests and requirement for test results for travel is no more needed.
“With COVID case numbers going down, the number of RT-PCR and home tests being done has reduced dramatically. Another factor is that most countries now do not insist on RT-PCR report for travel, and instead, only require vaccination certificate. RT-PCR test rates have been very low in most states after price capping and reduced RT-PCR testing will not make a substantial dip in revenues,” Dr Harsh Mahajan, Founder and Chief Radiologist, Mahajan Imaging said.
“In fact, with cases going down, the demand for other lab tests has gone up as patients get treated for health problems they had postponed due to COVID-19, and testing for health checks has increased. India needs to sustain COVID-19 testing at a reasonable level, and there should be keen focus on genome sequencing so that a new variant can be diagnosed at the earliest when further mutations take place,” he said.
The last 24 hours saw a total of 4,01,909 COVID-19 tests being conducted. India has so far conducted over 83.25 crore (83,25,06,755) cumulative tests, according to the union health ministry data. India’s Active Caseload currently stands at 11,860. Active cases now constitute 0.03 per cent of the country's total Positive Cases. 1,247 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours.
“Overall testing volumes are at their lowest, and with the pandemic act getting over and no more fines on masks, etc., we expect the volumes to go lower to nil. RT-PCR testing now may only be restricted to random testing on arrival at international airports, pre-surgical testing for symptomatic patients and/ or pre-travel requirements,” Dr Gauri Agarwal, Founder & Director, Genestrings Diagnostics said.
However, some diagnostic industry experts believe that RT-PCR testing will pave way for more diagnostic tests which were low in demand earlier. “The future of RT-PCR tests will continue to stay bright. Most of the new tests for infectious diseases and monitoring, cancer tests, genomics tests are going to be RT PCR molecular based tests. There are technologies which is evolving and will make it easier and more convenient for effective diagnosis and treatment. These technologies will continue to do better and better in the years to come,” pointed out Dr Nilesh Shah, President and Chief of Research and Innovation, Metropolis Healthcare.
“Many such home tests will be coming in future. Many developed countries such as the UK have already started adopting home tests, where in India, pregnancy test has been a common test which people have been doing it so far and now they have started doing COVID-19 tests at home [as well],” he said.
Meanwhile, Agarwal argued that home-based tests kits are good for early evaluation but cannot be compared to gold-standard testing when it comes to treatment or for clinical interventions.