Amidst concerns over the rapidly spreading Coronavirus infections across the country, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Tuesday said it is engaging with high-quality private laboratories, including those accredited by NABL, to understand the modalities to increase access to tests while ensuring appropriate safeguards.

Briefing the media in Delhi, ICMR director-general Dr Balram Bhargava said the body is currently engaged in laboratory expansion and at present, there are 72 functional laboratories in ICMR system.

“We have also engaged non-ICMR, Ministry of Health, government laboratories including CSIR, DRDO, DBT, govt medical colleges,” Bhargava said, adding that 49 of those labs will start testing by the end of this week.

“We are trying to engage private labs. We are in the process of getting them on board as soon as possible. They are not too many in number,” the DG added.

ICMR also said that, as per data, India is clearly not in Stage 3 of COVID-19.

“We already know that we are in stage 2. We are in not in stage 3, clearly,” Dr Balram Bhargava told reporters.

Further elaborating on the matter, he said: “There are 4 stages. The third stage is community transmission which we hope we shouldn’t have. It would depend on how strongly we close our international borders, in terms of which the government has taken very proactive steps.” “But can’t say that community transmission won’t happen,” he added.

The top medical body is also operationalising through two High-throughput systems which are rapid testing laboratories. They will be made operational in two locations and can test up to 1400 samples per day.

“We are operationalising them by the end of this week,” ICMR director-general said.

The preparedness measures by the Indian Council of Medical Research comes as the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in India has jumped to 137, which includes 24 foreigners.

Maharashtra has recorded the most cases, with 36. Kerala follows in second with 24 and Uttar Pradesh is third with 14.

Three fatalities have also been reported from Karnataka, Delhi and Maharashtra.