10,000 RAT kits are sent to Karnataka, but the state’s COVID testing goal is not met today.

Ten thousand Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) kits were delivered to Karnataka today. According to Naveen Bhat, MD of the National Health Mission, “we’ll distribute them to districts soon,” TOI was informed. The state had experienced a severe scarcity of RAT (Rapid Antigen Test) kits. “As many as 1,40,000 more RAT kits are required for the next 100 days at the rate of 1500 RAT tests per day, which will be supplied soon,” he stated.

With just 1752 tests conducted today, the state fell short of the testing goal it had set for itself. It has set a lofty goal to test for Covid every day starting on December 23. “Testing would increase to 5,000 starting after Christmas,” Health Commissioner D Randeep said.

Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMRCI), one of the centers designated for whole genome sequencing, has not yet begun whole genome sequencing. “To perform the test, we require a specific quantity of samples. As of Saturday, we have received seventy samples in total. To do the WGS test in the kit that we have on hand, we will need at least 96 samples,” an anonymous insider stated.

Randeep reported that 176 samples have been sent for whole genome sequencing to the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS). On December 21, 70 samples were sent, and on December 22, 67 samples, and so on.