Coronavirus scare: Hyderabad to test AP’s samples as well

HYDERABAD: Two new patients suspected to have Coronavirus have been admitted at Fever and Gandhi Hospital, respectively on Monday. This takes the total number of patients suspected to have nCoV in the State to 21, 19 of whom have tested negative for the virus.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) lab at Gandhi Hospital, which is testing the samples of patients suspected to have Coronavirus, will also be testing samples from Andhra Pradesh. Health Minister Etala Rajender announced that the Gandhi Hospital’s ICMR laboratory has been approved by the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune’s team that arrived Sunday to train the four scientists who will be conducting the tests here.

The Minister was spotted inspecting the ICMR lab at Gandhi Hospital, wearing complete protection gear. Speaking to mediapersons, Rajender said, “One of the recent samples is being tested here at Gandhi Hospital. We have received kits from the Centre.”

Speaking to Express, Dr S Nagamani, HoD, Microbiology Department, said, “We were here at the hospital till 10 pm Sunday night receiving training from the NIV team. We are ready to take samples round the clock.”

Explaining the process of testing, she added, “It takes a minimum of six hours for a test, but, before that the procedure involves documentation. We have been asked to first send 10 sample results and every positive report for crosschecking and final confirmation. The team at NIV will then confirm the positive test results.”

Speaking about safety, she said, “We are using full protection gear, including N95 masks and biosafety cabinets so that there is no leakage of the virus. The risk is only involved in the initial two steps, after that we will extract DNA and RNA from the samples and add chemical to it. However, the procedure should be done carefully, without any contamination, else we may get false positives.”

However, she also added, “The whole procedure requires a lot of manpower. We are short of manpower and have requested for staff from other departments to work on Coronavirus. We have divided the staff into three shifts.”