Covid-19 testing in PU
PU already in process of preparing itself for testing and completing ground work
cityairnews
Apr 21, 2020 04:03
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Chandigarh: The Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, has identified four centers in Chandigarh – Mohali region for “upscaling the testing capacity for Covid-19” whenever in future the need arises in the wake of increased cases. These centers are IMTECH, IISER, INST and PU which will be working on the Hub and Spoke model. IMTECH will serve as the Hub for collection of samples and processing them afor inactivation or RNA isolation and then will distribute these, along with kits, to the Spokes centers i.e. IISER, INST and PU for testing.
PU is already in the process of preparing itself for testing and is completing the ground work. PU has nine RT PCR machines in different departments and a database and working conditions of all these have been prepared, informed Prof Prince Sharma,Dean,Faculty Science. PU is readying its BioSafety Level 2 lab with equipment for carrying out the testing work. He shared that PU has a pool of around 40 research scholars who are ready to volunteer to carry out RT PCR tests. Out of these, a group of 10 has been identified as trained manpower who are adept in RT PCR technique. Whenever the need arises, these research scholars will be given a short training and they will be ready for testing. They may be provided hostel facility for accommodation or curfew passes.
Since IMTECH will provide samples in isolated RNA form or inactivated form, there will be no fear of getting any infection, he added.
