Telangana government to begin Covid-19 testing in 5 district labs

HYDERABAD: Days after chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s claim that more Covid tests would be done, the government is gearing up to conduct tests in five districts.
The government has sent a letter to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), seeking permission to do the the tests in the new labs.
The new labs will function in the district hospital centres of Nizamabad, Gadwal, Suyapet, Medak and Karimnagar. The five new government facilities have been asked to convert their cartridge-based nucleic acid amplification test (CBNAAT) facilities to do Covid-19 tests. With CBNAAT facility, TB tests are done.
The authorities have made arrangements to do RT-PCR tests in their labs for which permission is awaited. “We are expecting to get permission in next one week,” an official said.
Official said having the testing facilities in districts will help get the results within 24 hours. With no testing facilities in the districts, the samples are being sent to Hyderabad in ambulances, which is taking to time get the results. At present, Telangana state has 28 lab testing facilities for Covid-19. Out of these, 18 are in the private sector and the rest are government facilities. Among these 28 labs, only two — Warangal and Adilabad — are functioning in districts, while all the others are operating in Greater Hyderabad limits.
Presently, the state government is conducting 2,000 tests a day in government facilities, while other states have achieved the capacity of 10,000 tests per day. “Increasing the testing capacity will help people to not go to private labs. It will also help the government contain the spread of the virus,” said an official.
The samples of erstwhile Warangal district are being tested in MGM Hospital in Warangal and samples from erstwhile Adilabad district are being tested in RIMS, Adilabad. Meanwhile, health minister Eatala Rajender alleged that the central government did not allow the state get the big testing machine from Chennai which can do more than 5,000 tests per day.