Doctors say authorities in India's West Bengal state are slowing down the detection of coronavirus cases with a cumbersome, bureaucratic testing process that is putting health workers at risk.
NEW DELHI/KOLKATA - Doctors say authorities in India’s West Bengal state are slowing down the detection of coronavirus cases with a cumbersome, bureaucratic testing process that is putting health workers at risk.
But a dozen doctors, including representatives of three medics’ groups, told Reuters the situation in West Bengal was particularly dire. And Dr Shanta Dutta, who heads the federally-controlled main testing laboratory for West Bengal, said it had the capacity to conduct around 1,000 tests a day, but was not receiving that many samples submitted by medics.
Services in at least four major government hospitals and two private facilities in the state capital Kolkata have been hit after doctors and nurses came into contact with patients who later tested positive, doctors and a state official said.
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