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Eye on 10 lakh tests a day, PM Modi to inaugurate 3 new high throughput Covid labs tomorrow

The three laboratories are in three ICMR institutes at Mumbai, Kolkata and Noida. India has ordered 8 high throughput Covid testing machines from a Swiss company.

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to virtually inaugurate three high throughput novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV2) testing laboratories in three different cities — Mumbai, Kolkata and Noida — Monday afternoon.

The three can together test about 10,200 samples per day. Two of the labs are the first high throughput laboratories outside the National Capital Region (NCR).

High throughput laboratories like these — using either single machines that can churn out high volumes of tests or multiple machines to increase capacity — are the building blocks of a plan to test a million (10 lakh) samples a day, say officials in the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

On Saturday, India tested 4,42,263 samples, the highest ever, taking the total tests done so far to 1,62,91,331. “We are looking at eventually conducting a million tests a day,” Niti Ayog member (health) Dr V.K. Paul said at the Covid-19 briefing last week.

The three laboratories have been set up in three ICMR institutes — the National Institute of Research in Reproductive Health (NIRRH) in Mumbai, the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) in Kolkata and at the National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research (NICPR) in Noida. All of them are biosafety level II laboratories as is required for Covid testing.


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The laboratories

The NIRRH Mumbai has installed a COBAS 6800 machine. These imported machines manufactured by a Swiss company can test 1,200 samples a day, thus drastically reducing testing time and backlog in a city among India’s first Covid-19 hotspots and still has a very high disease burden. Each COBAS 6800 machine costs about Rs 3.7 crore.

There are currently two high throughput COBAS machines installed in the country — one in AIIMS, New Delhi, and the other one at the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), also in the national capital.

The high throughput laboratory at NICED Kolkata is equipped with a COBAS 8800 machine that can test 3,000 samples a day. Each machine costs about Rs 5.7 crore. The laboratory has been developed with an eye on boosting testing infrastructure in the eastern part of the country. It also comes at a time when West Bengal is witnessing a steady rise in cases and has instituted biweekly lockdowns as a means of bringing the disease under control.

The laboratory in Noida has been equipped with 12 RT-PCR machines and four automatic RNA extractors. The total daily output is expected to be about 6,000 samples a day.

“This is not one machine and there is nothing unique about the machines per se. Just that normally one laboratory has one RT PCR machine and here we have put a dozen together to expedite testing along with automated RNA extraction machines too,” said a senior ICMR official. “We have not yet calculated the cost of setting up the NICPR laboratory.”

More such machines coming

India has ordered eight high throughput Covid testing machines from the Swiss company, say senior officials in the ministry of health, adding that more could be in the pipeline as the pandemic surges.

There is, however, a high demand for them internationally, especially in the United States, which has the highest Covid burden currently. “We are getting the machines but the US is also buying up a lot of them. So they are coming in tranches,” said a senior official in the Ministry of Health.

India is currently conducting Covid-19 tests using RT PCR/CBNAAT/TrueNat (the latter two are used for TB testing) machines and also using the rapid antigen tests that cost less. There are 653 RT-PCR testing labs (399 government labs and 254 private), 530 TrueNat-based labs (466 government and 64 private) and 107 CBNAAT-based testing labs (32 government and 75 private).


Also read: Bharat Biotech — India’s Covid vaccine hope first shot to fame for $1 rotavirus vaccine


 

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