Maha first to have Covid-19 labs at all GMCs

Nagpur: Maharashtra achieved a unique milestone in Covid-19 testing facility on Wednesday when all 17 Government Medical colleges in the state got final approval of their Covid-19 testing laboratories. Total number of Covid-19 testing labs in state surged to 96 and daily testing capacity to more 50,000.
“With VRDL lab at Nanded GMCH getting final approval for Covid-19 testing on June 10, all GMCs are now equipped in Maharashtra. Maharashtra became first state to have such labs in each of its GMC. We are having highest number of labs and highest daily testing capacity in India,” said Dr Sanjay Mukherjee, secretary of Department of Medical Education.
Remarkably, all GMCs in state have RT-PCR facility, which is the most authentic way to test for coronavirus at present. Other two kinds of labs are TrueNat and CB-NAAT.
Apart from Directorate of Medical Education, Department of health services and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Nagpur, worked jointly to complete this task. AIIMS Nagpur played an important role in giving fast approvals to these labs.
“Quarterly quality checks are being conducted to ensure proper functioning of labs as per guidelines. All approved labs send daily reports of assessments conducted to AIIMS Nagpur. We are assisting them in case of any problems,” said Dr Vibha Dutta, director and CEO, AIIMS Nagpur.
As far as Vidarbha is concerned, now nine of 11 districts have their own Covid-19 testing facilities. Nagpur, Amravati, and Wardha have multiple labs while Akola, Yavatmal, Gondia, and Chandrapur have labs at respective GMCs. Gadchiroli and Bhandra district hospital has TrueNat facility.
TrueNat is a small battery operated machine that requires minimal training. It can also be easily used in a smaller setting. Samples tested negative on this machine are confirmed, but for positive samples a confirmatory test is mandatory using RT-PCR machine.
Kingsway Hospital in Nagpur became first private multispecialty hospital in Central India to have the testing facility on Wednesday. “We received the approval from ICMR on June 10. Now, patients at the Kingsway can be tested for Covid-19 right here,” said Dr Raju Khandelwal, hospital’s medical director.
Two private labs in Nagpur already have approval for testing. One of them is using TrueNat technology.
All GMCs have Covid-19 labs: A milestone for state
- On March 10, IGGMCH Nagpur was the only GMC to have Covid-19 testing facility
- On June 10, all 17 GMCH in Maharashtra have testing labs, total labs in state are 96
- Almost every civil and district hospital in state has Covid-19 testing facility
- All kinds of labs – TrueNat, CB-NAAT and RT-PCR are approved as per capability
- More than 40 private labs, hospitals also have approvals through AIIMS Nagpur
- More than 50,000 samples can be tested daily in Maharashtra
- DMER, MEDD and AIIMS Nagpur joined hands to ensure this achievement