The sharp rise in demand for home-made antigen testing kits in the third wave of corona has caused concern for the health department. According to municipal officials, many such positive patients may not be registered. Because covid positive people do not inform the relevant agencies. There are thousands of covid self test reports in Mumbai that have not been recorded. Since the municipality does not receive such reports, it is not able to understand the exact number of patients. Therefore, it will now be mandatory for manufacturers and sellers of Rapid Antigen sets to provide details of set sales to the municipality. The municipality has issued regulations regarding the use of this set.
What are the rules?
- The use of home or rapid antigen tests has increased but reports of these are not reported to the relevant authorities by the user. So now the corporation has started a system to follow the users.
- According to the new rules, companies, drug dealers or distributors of these test kits will have to provide detailed information about the kits sold on the email id provided by the municipality on a daily basis.
- The details of the Home Testing Antigen Kit sold to the chemist / pharmacy / medical store clinic customer in 'B' form should be given to the Commissioner, FDA on email id whogmp.mahafda@gmail.com and also on the email id of MCGM's Epidemiology Cell. mcgm.hometests@gmail.com.
- The chemist / pharmacy / medical store / dispensary will bill the buyer of the home testing antigen kits and keep a record of the customers to whom the home testing antigen kits are sold.
- The Commissioner, FDA will oversee the distribution and sale of home testing antigen kits to all chemist / pharmacy / medical stores and distributors in Mumbai.