Punjab Medical Education and Research Minister OP Soni on Sunday said that the Government had initiated preparations and arrangements to increase the number of daily tests from current 1050 to 3800 in the State’s Government medical colleges, which would be completed soon.
The three Government Medical Colleges in state had conducted more than 10,000 Covid-19 tests, of which 217 were positive, he said adding that the College labs started with initial capacity of 40 tests per day each at Amritsar and Patiala Government Medical Colleges (GMCs) after getting approval of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on March 15, 2020.
With the increase in number of patients of coronavirus, the Medical Education Department had immediately taken up the matter with the ICMR seeking permission to conduct 1050 tests daily in GMC Patiala, Amritsar and Faridkot.
Following the approval, the Government started testing 400 samples each daily at Amritsar and Patiala GMCs besides 250 at Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot. “The Government’s prompt action regarding enhancement of capacity from 40 to 400 for testing samples has immensely benefitted the State to keep the spread of coronavirus under check,” he said.
The Minister revealed that with Punjab Government’s concerted efforts, Amritsar and Patiala GMCs would soon start conducting daily 1400 tests each besides testing 1000 samples daily at Faridkot thereby conducting a total 3800 tests of Covid-19 daily in these institutions. At present, 5346 Extraction (Manual) and 29461 RT-PCR Test kits are available, and the pool test capacity is 1050, which is proved very helpful.