National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune | National Institute of Communicable Disease (NICD) Delhi | Swine FLue Testing | H1N1 Testing | People want swine flue tests at private labs

Swine Flu is spreading at alarming rate in India. So far it has claimed 7 lives in India, with most of them being resident of Maharashtra.

As of now there are 18 accredited government labs across India to test influenza A (H1N1) virus. As of now government has given a clear word on when it  will start allowing private labs to test patients for the dreaded flu.

Given a choice, most people prefer going to a private lab for test.

“I get so many calls and not one caller is happy about going to a government hospital for the test. The primary fear is that government hospitals are so crowded. They fear they might end up catching the disease by going to these hospitals,” said Dr Subhash Arya, head of department paediatrics and adolescent medicine at BL Kapoor Hospital, Pusa Road.

The testing load on National Institute of Communicable Disease (NICD) in Delhi and National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune is tremendous, and so results get delayed. For example NICD, is equipped to conduct 63 tests in a day but gets over 100 samples for testing. The results therefore get delayed.