One Covid-19 testing machine fails in Rims

Gaurav Pandey | TNN | Apr 8, 2020, 05:00 IST

Ranchi: Amid the increase of Covid-19 cases from one to four within a week in Jharkhand, testing of samples at the state-run Rajendra Institute of Medical Science (Rims) suffered a hit as one of the two reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) machine developed a snag.
Rims sources said the snag developed four days ago, resulting in accumulation of collected samples and delaying their testing. Since confirmation of the state’s first Covid-19 case on March 31, there has been an increase in the collection of samples from about 20 initially to 70 at present. The samples are tested at the two designated labs at Rims in Ranchi and MGM in Jamshedpur. While Rims had two machines, of which one has broken down, MGM has only one testing machine.
Talking to TOI, Dr Manoj Kumar, head of department of microbiology at Rims, said, “Our testing lab is hit as one of our machines is faulty and our capacity is reduced by around 50%. We are not able to perform more than 92 tests on a daily basis. On the other hand, the inflow of samples has increased exponentially. We are holding the samples for a night and running the test the next morning.”
Dr Kumar preferred not to divulge the number of samples on hold till Tuesday, but sources said more than 150 samples are yet to be tested.
The machine at Rims developed the snag at a time when the Ranchi district administration has intensified its screening and contact tracing in Hindpiri locality after two positive cases were detected in the area.
Rims officials said they are trying to get the second machine running at the earliest. As of now, Jharkhand doesn’t have machines which can perform automatic extraction of ribonucleic acid (RNA) from the samples, which also delays the exercise.
Dr Ashok Kumar, an assistant professor at Rims microbiology department, said, “After one of the machines became defunct since April 2, we raised a service request with the supplier. An engineer is supposed to visit our lab by Wednesday. Once the machine is repaired, our testing capacity will be increased to around 150 per day by Thursday.”
He further said Rims has ordered a Germany-made automated RNA extracting machine and is expected to arrive within a week. “The most cumbersome task during sample testing is RNA extraction from the swabs due to which it takes around five to six six hours to complete the testing. Once we receive the automatic RNA extraction machine, we will be able to complete testing cycle within two to three hours and can also enhance our testing capacities,” Dr Ashok added.
MGM Jamshedpur lab, which has only one machine, is already under acute manpower shortage and many samples are also on hold there.
Dr Piyali Gupta, a microbiologist at MGM hospital, said, “We are already short of hands and with collected samples increasing to more than 70 on a daily basis from 15 per day since March 31, work is heavy for us. But we continue to give our best as we cannot leave things midway. Even today, we have completed testing of more than 30 samples and are working on another 30.”