Gurgaon: The city’s lone government laboratory for conducting RT-PCR tests was shut down for 24 hours on Sunday after the facility was found contaminated. The shutting down of the lab at the Civil Hospital, which has a capacity to process 1,800 samples daily, will delay test results further amid complaints that reports are taking much longer than usual.
Officials said samples had been sent to the medical colleges in Rohtak and Khanpur for testing. The shutting down of the Civil Hospital lab will not only delay results but also hamper contact tracing, both key to containing the spread of the virus. With the rapid rise in Covid cases and the administration’s decision to conduct 10,000 tests daily, both government and private labs are overwhelmed with samples. Not only are the test results getting delayed, many labs have refused to collect fresh samples for the time being.
Sources said it was decided to disinfect the lab and shut it down for a day after three doctors working there tested positive. The facility is expected to resume processing of samples from Monday.
“The lab is being fumigated and sanitised properly. For the time being, we are sending samples to Rohtak and other government and private labs so that testing isn’t hampered. We will try to hand out reports to residents at the earliest. As of now, we have been taking 24 to 36 hours to give out the results. For the next two days, we will take 48 hours to come out with reports,” said Virender Yadav, the chief medical officer of Gurgaon.
Yadav said there could be multiple reasons for the lab getting contaminated. “The contamination can be from doctors and paramedical staff, faulty methods while extraction of samples, or from equipment and PPE kits used by the staff,” the CMO said.
Apart from the government facility at the Civil Hospital, the city has 12 private labs that have a total capacity to examine 30,000 samples a day. However, these labs process samples collected from other districts of Delhi-NCR too.
Asked how the health department planned to intensify contact tracing if the results were delayed, Yadav said the teams concerned would be notified as soon as anyone tested positive. “The results will be updated on the portal late at night so that contact tracing teams can start the process early next morning,” he added.
Gurgaon also plans to carry out 30% antigen testing in keeping with ICMR guidelines to screen those with symptoms.