The long-pending plan to establish an advanced laboratory for testing viral diseases, including influenza in Raipur, has started taking shape and a team of ICMR had already visited the city in this regard.
The lab once operational will reduce dependency of the Health Department on National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), New Delhi, for testing of influenza including H1N1 (swine flu).
“A laboratory is being planned to be established in Pandhri and a team of Regional Medical Research Center for Tribals (RMRCT), Jabalpur had conducted a visit for the purpose,” said Deputy Director of Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) Dr SM Murty.
Dr Murty said that the laboratory is in the pipeline and will be initially set up for vector borne diseases like malaria, sickle cell Anaemia and other viral diseases.
As far as H1N1 is concerned, the disease is an endemic now and there is standing instruction that treatment should be started if the patient is a suspect “We send the sample to NCDC for confirmation and the plan to establish the lab was pending for long time. There are plans to develop the lab for testing of influenza also,’ added Dr Murty.
The RMRCT which is a unit of ICMR has sent its team to select a land for establishing the laboratory, sources said. The lab will come up in the premises of old district hospital in Pandhri.
later an advance laboratory will facility of influenza testing will be established in a new building.
The swine flu has been under control in the State and only one patient was detected positive out of 10 samples sent to NCDC in 2013.