The Rajasthan government has set up a genome sequencing lab in the SMS hospital of Jaipur, becoming the first state to establish such a facility in the country. The lab has tested 100 samples till now and 90 of them had tested positive for the Delta variant of COVID-19, while 10 are tested positive for the B1.1 variant.
‘Genome sequencing lab will help us to detect new variants of Covid-19 on time and government will be able to take action accordingly’ said health minister Raghu Sharma.
The samples were being sent to Delhi’s IGiB lab for Genome sequencing till now and the state was sending around 300 samples every month but was not getting reports on time. Then I was decided to set up a lab here in Jaipur.
The government has spent Rs. 1 crore to set up this lab and it has started working from June 15th. Health minister Sharma said that we are testing 20 samples every day and will soon attain the capacity to test 80 samples a day.
