PUNJAB MEDICAL COLLEGES 3 LABS CROSSES 10000 MARK EXISTING CAPACITY TO BE FURTHER ENHANCED: OP SONI

Chandigarh: Punjab Medical Education & Research Minister O.P. Soni on Sunday said that the Government Medical Colleges in state had conducted more than 10,000 COVID-19 tests, of which 217 were positive. 
Disclosing this, the Minister said that the state Government had initiated reunite preparations and arrangements to increase the number of daily tests from currently conducted 1050 to 3800, which would be completed soon. 
Mr Soni said that the college labs started with initial capacity of 40-40 tests per day each at Amritsar and Patiala Government Medical Colleges (GMCs) after getting approval of ICMR on March 15, 2020. With the increase in number of patients of coronavirus, the Medical Education Department had immediately taken up the matter with the ICMR seeking permission to conduct daily 1050 tests daily in GMC Patiala, Amritsar and Faridkot. Following the approval from ICMR, the Punjab Government started testing 400 samples each daily at Amritsar and Patiala GMCs besides 250 at Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot. He said that the prompt action of State Government regarding enhancement of capacity from 40 to 400 for testing samples had immensely benefitted the state to keep the spread of coronavirus under check. 
The Minister revealed that with the concerted efforts of Punjab Government, the Amritsar and Patiala GMCs would soon start conducting daily 1400 tests each besides testing 1000 samples daily at Faridkot thereby conducting a total 3800 tests of COVID-19 daily in these institutions. 
 Mr. Soni said that at present 5346 Extraction (Manual) and 29461 RT-PCR  Test kits are available.  In addition, the pool test capacity is 1050, which is proved very helpful.
 Referring to online system to keep the days of sample collection besides providing online reports, the Minister asserted that this system would be launched soon as the work in this regard was in full swing. He said that once this system was introduced, the sampling from the time of collection and the arrival of samples in lab would be monitored online and the reports would also be provided through online system. 
Lauding the remarkable services being extended by the scientists, doctors of medical colleges and hospitals, para medical staff and sanitation workers across the state, the Minister thanked them for their dedication and professional commitment to fight the battle against against COVID-19.