Now, India’s premier institution has come
forward to help check the spread of coronavirus. The Indian Institute of technology (IIIT)
Mandi has stepped up to support in setting up a real-time Polymerase Chain
Reaction (PCR) laboratory for diagnosing Coronavirus at SLBSGMCH.
This
premier institution has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Shri
Lal Bahadur Shastri Government Medical College & Hospital (SLBSGMCH) in
Himachal Pradesh to help control the spread of Coronavirus disease across the
region.
The
institute has already offered a real-time PCR machine along with few other
equipment as well as trained personnel to SLBSGMCH. This is to set up the
real-time PCR reactor and data analysis, which is one of the crucial steps for
diagnosis, after Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) isolation.
This
sophisticated instrument will be solely used for COVID-19 diagnosis and will
help in ramping up the testing process by analysing 100 samples if run for 24
hours continuously.
In case of
urgency, it can be increased to the capacity of conducting up to 1000 samples
per day for the detection of COVID-19. The SLBSGMCH will start analyzing the
COVID-19 samples after getting approval from the Indian Council of Medical
Research (ICMR).
Besides,
the institution will be conducting a training session for SLBSGMCH on the
real-time PCR setup and data analysis.