COVID-19: Give RT-PCR test reports immediately, Bombay High Court tells labs

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The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has said that laboratories must send RT-PCR tests to people on Whatsapp or as hard copies immediately, the order coming after an intervenor said people were facing difficulty getting their reports as testing facilities were not parting with it till it was uploaded on the Indian Council of Medical Research portal.

A division bench of Justices Z A Haq and A B Borkar was on Thursday hearing a bunch of petitions pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic and its order was made available on Friday.

The court was informed by intervenor Mukesh Chandak, a doctor, that several times the ICMR server was slow and this added to the trouble of people waiting for their RT-PCR reports.

"We direct that after making the report available to patients on Whatsapp, the reports of those persons who test positive shall be uploaded on the ICMR portal within 24 hours and the reports of those who test negative should be uploaded on the ICMR portal within seven days, the bench said, adding that the authorities would be free to take appropriate action against laboratories violating this directive.

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