ICMR gives nod, samples to be tested at Ambala Civil Hospital

Advertisement

xxx

Box: 100 samples sent for testing daily (NOT IN COPY)

–On an average, over 100 Covid tests were being conducted every day in Ambala district and these samples were sent to different laboratories, which provided reports after at least 24 hours

–The CBNAAT equipment available in the district will conduct four tests per hour and in this way, it will be able to give results of 96 tests every 24 hours

–Till date, over 4,000 Covid tests have been conducted in the district, of which 42 persons tested positive and the others negative.

xxx

Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Ambala, May 15

Ambala has got the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) nod to conduct cartridge-based nucleic acid amplification test (CBNAAT) of Covid samples using Cepheid’s Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 test.

Confirming the development, Civil Surgeon Dr Kuldeep Singh said the CBNAAT machine was already functional at Ambala City Civil Hospital and with the ICMR’s approval, suspected patients in the district would be tested here itself.

“Following the recommendation of Chandigarh PGIMER expert group, the ICMR has allowed us to use this testing method. The testing with the Cepheid’s Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 will be done under the biosafety 2 level (BSL-2) conditions and with appropriate precautions,” he disclosed.

Recently introduced polymerase chain reaction-based (PCR) method for detection of mycobacterium tuberculosis, the CBNAAT will be used to conduct the Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 test, which is a rapid, real-time RT-PCR test aimed at the qualitative detection of nucleic acid from the SARS-CoV-2 in either nasopharyngeal, nasal, or mid-turbinate swab/ nasal wash/ aspirate specimens collected from suspected Covid patients.

The ICMR had last month also issued an advisory, saying any laboratory already functional for SARS-CoV-2 testing by real-time PCR with appropriate BSL-2 setup, may start testing using Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 without further approval from the ICMR. The FDA-approved testing system is used under emergency use authorisation (EUA) only and test results will have to be uploaded on the ICMR Covid portal, mandated the ICMR.

As per ICMR protocol, the district health department will ensure availability of a BSL-2 level laboratory facility, including a molecular biology setup for virological diagnosis and a functioning and calibrated biosafety cabinet type 2A/2B in the laboratory, staff having experience in molecular virology, a robust institutional policy on biomedical waste management of human origin and well-defined arrangement for segregation and discarding of biomedical waste.