New Delhi: Rising COVID cases in the national capital has hit the city’s health infrastructure hard. While reports of acute oxygen shortage and inadequate supplies of anti-viral drug Remdesivir have flooded social media, many private labs in the national capital have halted collection of swab samples for at least two days. This comes amid increased demands for RT-PCR or antigen tests as Delhi battles the second covid-19 wave.
Delhi has conducted 86,526 tests in the last 24 hours, said a government bulletin on Tuesday evening. Notably, many labs are closing themselves for three to four days citing overburden and shortage in manpower, ANI reported.
Why Are Labs Shutting Down?
The ICMR guidelines state that the data of results have to be uploaded within 24 hours. At the current pace, labs are struggling to provide the results even within 48 hours of collecting the swab samples. As a result, labs are being forced toward closure for at least two days.
“My team and I have not slept for 72 hours”
Dr Gauri Agarwal, Founder-Director of Genestrings Diagnostic Center, Malviya Nagar told ANI, “My team and I have not slept for 72 hours. We are doing a collection of 8,000 to 10,000 samples per day and the only issue we are struck with is manpower. Most of the labs have proper infrastructure, be it machines or testing kits. We are running short of manpower. A lot of our technicians are contracting the virus. However, there is a continuous hiring process and also we have to keep training them.”
“The home calls have increased by about four to five times. We are trying our best but the home collection is not possible for all. I would request people to come to the centre for swab testing that helps in getting results faster,” she said.
COVID-19 Surge in Delhi
To keep pace with the Covid-19 surge and to check the delay in providing results, the Delhi government on April 16 issued an order stating, “Keeping in view the above and to ensure that districts (and Government hospitals) have an adequate number of slots available in labs to get their samples processed within a stipulated time frame (preferably 24 hours and latest within 48 hours) through the Gold Standard Test in continuation of order 1 tF.No.253/DGHS/PLIW-IV/COVID-19/ NCDC/2020/ 12205-12274 dated 15/01/202 the linkage of public and private sector lab with each District of NCT of Delhi is amended with immediate effect.”
Delhi recorded 277 deaths in the last 24 hours, the highest since the pandemic began over a year ago, and 28,395 new cases of Covid-19. There are currently 85,575 active cases in the national capital.