Indian Council of Medical Research, ICMR has said that the daily COVID-19 testing capacity at various laboratories in the country will be scaled up in the future and it is expected to reach one lakh tests per day by the end of the next month.

ICMR said that the current model of inventory stocking and distribution will be scaled up significantly to meet the increased requirement of testing material with increasing number of tests.

For this purpose, 16 regional depots are being set up by strengthening manpower, resources and infrastructure.

ICMR informed that depots at National Institute of Malaria Research, NIMR, New Delhi and National Institute of Virology, Pune would also function as central depots.

The role and responsibilities of regional depots will be to receive stock from central depots and repackaging for lab-level and state-level consignments as per ICMR’s guidelines.

Also, regional depot will assist labs on technical issues and coordinate logistics support to state, government and private service provider.

Regional depot will also keep tab on inventory level and keep the stocks in advance of a potential stock-out.