Young architect designs 'Pandemic Sample Collection Unit' based on South Korea pattern

Yash Goyal
Our Correspondent
Jaipur, April 15

Based on South Korean pattern to safeguard health workers and doctors to deal with the COVID-19 patients, an Udaipur based young architect has designed a foolproof ‘Sample Collection Unit’ to create fast and effective temporary collection centres for throat and nose swabs.

Neuberg Supratech Lab, an institution accredited for COVID-19 test, has approved it for making and usage.

This unit will save and protect the person coming forward for the test, and the health workers and doctors collecting the samples.

Anup Gupte, B. Arch and PG-Design Alumni of National Institute of Design Ahmedabad, told reporters on an interactive portal on Wednesday.

The design envisions to formalize a temporary sample collection facility with 3 booths in a 40ft X 40ft areas.

In this proposal, the doctor remains in isolation, away from people getting tested and hence the chances of contamination are minimized, according to Gupte. South Korean doctors have used it successfully, and so far no Indian company has designed it. He claimed. A manufacturing of complete unit would cost Rs.2.5 lakh, he estimated.

“I have sent a proposal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Ministers of the states including Rajasthan, and Collectors to pay attention on it as a few of manufacturing units are ready to build the booths free of cost to serve human suffering”, he mentioned.

As soon as the sample is collected, it is taken away by a health worker. Booth is disinfected and kit is replaced. While this disinfection is being done, the next person to be tested can enter the second booth and so on. This technique reduces inter-contamination of people getting tested. Additionally, the number of people to be tested increases tremendously, also reducing the number of PPE kit requirements. We need to design our infrastructure to be able to effectively win against this invisible enemy, he claimed.

Neuberg Supratech Micropath Laboratory, a CAP and NABL accredited institute in Ahmedabad, have approved the design with a certificate. “It is a secure and protective COVID sample collection unit. It is systematic in design and does rule out the possibility of personnel involved in the collection of case samples to be completely isolated from the possibility of catching the highly contagious virus. At the same time it prevents cross-contamination to the cases coming to give the samples”.