Mumbai: More than 5 Mandiri Lakh testers kits have been sold by one company alone in the city in the past week, underlining the increase in demand for a quick test in Omicron Surge.
But a small portion of the test findings at home has been reported to health authorities, increasing fear of undercounting cases in Mumbai.
Mandiri testing seems to have been a mainstay of Covid-19 diagnosis in the city of last night with thousands of choosing such tests over more reliable.
Some doctors recommend it as well as the promise of RT-PCR and the results are taken between 48-72 hours, and given a limited omicron disease range, waiting for the RT-PCR report almost in vain.
Positive tests at home also help one isolate faster, experts say.
Mylab Discovery Solutions which produces ‘Coviself’ told TII they have sold five lakh kits between 1 and 7 January in Mumbai.
The company that sells kits for RS 250 has 25,000 large party units in the last week of December when new cases begin to depend.
In Delhi, they claim, around 2.5 lakh kits have been sold in January.
Hasmukh rawal, founder of Pune-based company, said they had seen a leap of 500% in sales in a week.
Two other Mandiri Test Players – Abbott who produced Panbio and Meril which made Covifind – also witnessed a big leap in sales, even though they did not divulge sales figures.
Sanjeev Bhatt, senior vice president, Meril, said they had observed a 50% increase in demand on Sunday.
The company claims to have the capacity to produce 20 million kits per month.
A spokesman Abbott agreed Mumbai and other countries had seen a significant increase because the test was easy to use and gave results in 15 minutes.
While kit makers are happy with sales, health authorities worry about thousands of cases under the radar.
A citizenship official said they only received an average of 2,700-3,000 notification of self-testing in a day, where 250-300 was a positive result.
“People must have a sense of responsibility to record results in the application.
We have no other way to find out,” the official said.
Because BMC began maintaining data on independent testing in August, 89,326 results have been communicated by users.
When Tii asked, all manufacturers said they had made a cellular application where people were expected to record results.
Local chemists say they have bought a thousand kit boxes sold out in a day.
“We sell 300 kits on Friday and have to call for additional stock.
Maximum request in South and Central Mumbai,” said a sales executive in Prabhadevi.
AMC Suresh Kakani said the city had recorded more than 70,000 tests every day, the majority were RT-PCR.
“We are not too worried about home tests.
We consider people will be quite responsible for declaring the results and isolate themselves when positive,” he said.
“Also for reception, people will need a RT-PCR test,” he added.