Doctor's prescription not mandatory now for COVID-19 testing in Delhi

New Delhi, Sep 08: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday ordered that doctor's prescription will not be mandatory from now on for those going voluntarily for RT/PCR test to detect COVID-19 infection in the national capital.

Till now it was mandatory for a person to have a doctor's prescription or symptoms to get tested for the virus.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said he has directed the Health Minister that doctor's prescription should not be asked for testing and that Anyone can get himself/herself tested.

RT/PCR, short for Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction, is a laboratory technique widely used in the diagnosis of genetic diseases and to measure gene expression in research.

The High Court said people need to carry Aadhaar card for Delhi address proof and fill up a form as prescribed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for COVID-19 testing.

The court noted that there was a sharp increase in the number of cases in Delhi and asked private laboratories to allow 2,000 COVID-19 tests a day for those who want to undergo the voluntarily screening.

In view of recent increase in COVID-19 positive cases, Delhi government had earlier said that it is scaling up the number of daily tests to 40,000 daily.

Majority of the COVID-19 tests being conducted are rapid antigen tests that give results quickly.