Private laboratories performing Covid tests in Ranchi are to record all details of the person being tested, and, in the event of him/her testing positive, share the report with the district administration, the deputy commissioner has said.

Deputy commissioner Chhavi Ranjan, who met representatives of private laboratories on Saturday, told reporters that the idea was to ensure coordination with labs from detection of a case to contact tracing in an effort to curb the transmission chain.

“Two-three key directives were given, First, private labs were asked to maintain at least two functional contact numbers of the person whose samples are being tested so that if he/she tests positive, we can reach out to him in least possible time. Secondly, we have asked the labs to maintain proper details of the person. Most important, labs have been asked to share information first to the administration and then to the person concerned.”

Another official in the district health department said that Saturday’s meeting was in the light of a few instances of lack of coordination between private labs/hospitals and the district administration leading to late hospitalisation of an infected person, or early release of an individual from a quarantine centre.

“We can’t afford to leave any more loopholes in our Covid action plan at a time when cases are peaking daily,” the official said.

In May, the state government empanelled four private labs—Dr Lal Pathlab, SRL Limited, Core Diagnostics and Path Kind Diagnostic _ for undertaking Covid-19 testing in addition to RT-PCR labs at five government hospitals.

Earlier this month, the state government also reduced by 50 per cent the cost of a test to Rs 2,100 to encourage more people to get tested on their own and reduce the load on government labs that are battling heavy sample rush and manpower crunch.