PM Modi to launch high throughput COVID-19 testing facilities today

PM Narendra Modi will launch 'high throughput' COVID-19 testing facilities in Noida, Mumbai, and Kolkata, via video conferencing, today. These facilities are said to ramp up testing capacity and help strengthen early detection and treatment in the country.

New Delhi:In an attempt to bolster India's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch high throughput testing facilities at three different locations across the country via video conferencing, today.

As per sources, high throughput testing facilities have strategically been set up at ICMR-National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research, Noida, ICMR-National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health, Mumbai and ICMR-National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Disease, Kolkata.

Taking to Twitter, the PM wrote, ''At 4:30 PM on Monday, 27th July, high-throughput COVID-19 testing facilities will be launched. These high-throughput testing facilities being set up in Noida, Mumbai and Kolkata will help in further ramping up our testing capacity."

Officials said that these labs will also reduce the turnaround time and exposure of lab personnel to infectious clinical materials. These testing machines together can test more than 10,200 samples per day.

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Interestingly, post COVID-19 pandemic, these facilities will also be able to test for Hepatitis B and C, HIV, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, cytomegalovirus, Chlamydia, Neisseria, Dengue among others.

An official in ICMR said that these high throughput laboratories are the building blocks of a plan to test a million (10 lakh) samples a day.

Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has earlier said that India will achieve the 10 lakh tests record per day in the coming days.

The ICMR laboratories in Noida, Kolkata and Mumbai has been chosen for setting up the machines because of their status of biosafety level II laboratories, as is required for Covid19 testing.