The fact that only one technician is assigned to conduct Enzyme linked Immunosorbent Assay (ElISA) of suspected patients of dengue in the Dehradun district deflates tall claims of State Health Department on anti-dengue activity.
The ElISA is the confirmatory test of dengue and the State Health Department considers only those cases as dengue positive which are found positive after ElISA test. Incidentally, the department has authorised the labs of associated hospital of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) and HIHT Jollygrant for ElISA test.
The district health department conducts ElISA tests of all the samples it collects from the health camps and suspected patients at associated hospitals of GDMC. In the pathology lab of the department the task of ElISA in this hospital is assigned to only one technician.
In view of the workload, this technician, Ashish Kimothi has to work from 8 am till 9 pam. It is learnt that his repeated pleas for providing another technician have fallen on deaf ears. After many requests, the medical college administration recently released six technicians to the hospital and one of them was to assist Kimothi. But on very first day, the new technician fell ill and is on leave since then, suffering from dengue himself. Kimothi said that at one time 91 samples can be placed on the machine and the results take four to five hours.
These days more than 200 suspected samples of dengue are being tested for ElISA. He said that the tasks like testing and preparing reports are all done by him. It is learnt that the hospital has two ElISA readers but one of them is out of order.
The CMS of the hospital Dr KK Tamta said that the hospital is short of technicians. He said that more technicians should be provided to the hospital due to workload.