Six private labs included in India’s Covid-19 genomic sequencing consortium

The department of biotechnology on Tuesday approved the inclusion of six private laboratories to India’s Sars-CoV-2 genomic sequencing consortium, which has been keeping track of the mutations in the virus and emerging variants since last year. The consortium, INSACOG, is a network of 10 central laboratories acting as hubs and 28 regional laboratories working as spokes.

The inclusion of the private laboratories was approved nearly five months after the department released the standard operating procedures for the same.

Four of the six laboratories that have been included in the consortium are from Bengaluru, one from Delhi, and one from Ahmedabad, according to an office memoradum, which states, “the competent authority of the department of biotechnology has approved the inclusion of the following private genome sequencing laboratories in the Indian Sars-CoV-2 Genomic Consortium (INSACOG).”

One of the big criteria, conditional to which the labs have received approval, is that they have to arrange for funding on their own. The labs cannot charge people for the tests and neither will the government pay the labs for sequencing.

It costs laboratories anywhere between R 5,000 to 10,000 per sample for genomic sequencing. “Sequencing costs to be met by the private laboratories. Also, charges shall not be levied from the patients,” the office memorandum states.

CARINGdx of Mahajan Imagings, the only lab from Delhi to have been included in the consortium, said that they would now start looking for fundings from various multi-lateral organisation or corporate houses to fund the sequencing effort. “It is fair that we don’t ask patients to pay for sequencing because the data is not of use for an individual patients, it provides us the community level picture. We will now start looking at finding from various aid agencies, multi-lateral agencies, or even CSR funds from corporate houses. We will be willing to do sequencing at no profit, no loss,” said Dr Harsh Mahajan, chief radiologist and founder of Mahajan Imaging.

The private laboratories will receive and report results of the samples through the hub laboaratory they are attached to. The hub laboratories will provide the isolated RNA (genomic material) to the private players in an anonymised manner.

The laboratories have also been forbiden to advertise their association with INSACOG and the recognition can be withdrawn by INSACOG if all SOPs are not followed. The sample distribution to and the quality check of the sequencing done by the labs would be coordinated by the National Centre for Disease Control in Delhi.

The labs have also been asked to keep the details of the sequencing to themselves. “Sequencing information will be confidential and not shared with any third party, media, or public,” the office memorandum said.

The INSACOG is supposed to release a weekly bulletin providing a picture of which variants are in circulation and whether any concerning mutations have been noted. However, the bulletins are not regularly uploaded to their portal, with the last INSACOG bulletin publicly available being from January 10.

Data from outbreak.info that tracks genomic sequences uploaded to the global database GISAID shows that over the last 60 days, 48% of the sequences uploaded were that of Omicron’s BA.2 variant whereas only 2% were that of delta variant that swept through the country last year.