Kolkata: Two more private laboratories ready to test corona

KOLKATA: Two more private labs in the city — Peerless Hospital and AMRI Hospital Salt lake — has received ICMR nod to start testing Covid-19 samples, taking the count of private labs to four in the state. Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals and Tata Medical Centre are the two others that can test swab samples of corona suspects. With the five government laboratories, including three in Kolkata, the state now is equipped with nine laboratories to test samples.
Unlike the other seven labs that conduct RT-PCR (Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction) test, the two newly added labs will use the GeneXpert machine, which is used to diagnose tuberculosis.ICMR has now widened the scope by adding rapid antibody and GeneExpert tests.
“This is also called CBNAAT (Cartridge based nucleic acid amplification test).The hazardous step of RNA extraction is not needed. The sample is loaded into the cartridge and then all the steps of RT PCR occur within the cartridge in an automated fashion. So it is a rapid RT-PCR that takes only about 45 minutes to run a sample and gives very accurate result,” said Bhaskar Narayan Chaudhury, microbiologist at Peerless Hospital.
The two labs will have the capacity to run about 20 samples each in a day. Both the labs are expected to start taking in samples in about a week after they get the kits. “We have run at least 13 samples so far. In addition to testing samples of our own patients, we will be able to take in about 10 samples from other hospitals,” said Dr Shyamasis Bandyopadhyay, director (medical services) at AGH.