COVID-19: Punjab ramps up testing capacity 10-fold, to launch rapid testing drive to screen one million people

Apprehending a spike in COVID-19 cases, the Punjab government has ramped up testing capacity 10-fold with the procurement of requisite machines besides chalking out strategies to contain the spread of this deadly virus that has claimed 10 lives and left over 130 distressed in the state till Thursday afternoon.

Besides this, the government also intends to launch a rapid testing drive aiming to screen one million people, said state health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, while sharing the practices and strategies adopted by Punjab to contain the spread of COVID-19, with his counterparts from Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Puducherry through a video conference on Wednesday night.

The video conference was attended by senior Congress leaders including Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor and Sam Pitroda.

The states and Union Territory also agreed upon the need to scale up tracing and testing. An official spokesperson of the state government informed that gearing up for this, acquisition of 10 lakh Rapid Testing Kits (RTK) has been approved by the Punjab Cabinet and an order for requisition of one lakh kits from ICMR has been placed.

Moreover, testing capacity of Viral Research Diagnostic Labs (VRDL) in Government Medical Colleges at Patiala and Amritsar has been increased. Approval for testing at GMC Faridkot, DMC and CMC Ludhiana has also been sought from the Union government.

Modalities are being worked out for manufacturing PPE kits at Ludhiana which, once operational, would enable Punjab not just to meet its own requirement but would have sufficient kits to supply to other states.

During the video conference, the need for setting up of testing facility at every district headquarters was also stressed, in case of exponential growth in COVID-19 cases. However, Punjab is expected to cope with up the situation with Union government’s approval to rope in GMC, Faridkot, DMC and CMC Ludhiana, the spokesperson said.

So far, Influenza like Illness (ILI) cases or those with international travel history or the contacts of COVID-19 patients are being screened but asymptomatic cases being found positive in different parts of the country is an alarming phenomena which calls for better preparation, agreed all participants.

Meanwhile to increase the sample testing of COVID-19 suspects, five additional RTPCR and four RNA extraction machines have been purchased by the Punjab Government. The machines have been installed in two of its VRDL (Viral Research Diagnostic Lab) labs situated at Government Medical Colleges, Patiala and Amritsar. With this, now the capacity of each lab to conduct the sample testing of suspected COVID-19 suspects has increased from existing 40 tests per day to 400 tests per day.

In total, these two labs would be able to conduct 800 tests per day as against the existing capacity of 80 tests per day, informed D.K.Tiwari, Principal Secretary, Medical Education and Research, Punjab.