Coronavirus: 52 Testing Labs Set Up in States, 2 in Assam

New Delhi, March 7, 2020:

The Government has designated 52 laboratories for testing samples of Coronavirus and 57 labs have been assigned to aid in sample collection for COVID-19 so as to strengthen the health department in handling the situation in India.

34 positive cases have been reported in the country till the filing of this report. “Following the increase in load of screening samples from suspected cases with symptoms and travel history to the affected countries, the Department of Health Research/ICMR has commissioned 52 laboratories for COVID-19 testing in India,” an official was quoted as saying.

In Assam, labs at Gauhati Medical College in Guwahati and Regional Medical Research Centre, Dibrugarh have been activated. These labs will cover the Northeast region as of now as no other lab has been designated yet in the other parts of the Northeast region.

In West Bengal, the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases and IPGMER have been made functional.

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In Delhi, the facility of sample testing has been made available at AIIMS. The Labs have been set up at the main heath centres of different states such as Andhra Pradesh (Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences in Tirupati, Andhra Medical College in Visakhapatnam and GMC, Anantapur), Bihar, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and among others.

According to reports, as of March 6, a total of 4,058 samples from 3,404 individuals have been tested by the network. This includes testing of 1,308 samples from 654 individuals evacuated from Wuhan, China and quarantined at ITBP and Manesar Camp and tested twice on days 0 and 14.

Subsequently, another 236 individuals evacuated from Wuhan and Diamond Princess Ship, Japan on February 27 were tested on day 0. Repeat testing will be done on day 14.

India has taken the necessary measures to help contain the spread and also cure the ones testing positive.

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