Varanasi: Covid samples pile up at BHU labs, east UP districts in a limbo

VARANASI: As Covid-19 cases boom, over 7,000 samples only from Varanasi have piled up at the labs of Banaras Hindu University and are yet to be tested. This has forced the authorities to ask the neighbouring east UP districts to send their samples to the labs of other centres till the backlog is cleared.
Officials of the district administration and BHU labs are hopeful of clearing the pending tests in the next two-three days.In the morning Covid bulletin, the district administration stated that results of 6,966 samples were awaited. The 873 samples collected for RTPCR test on Friday have not been included in this figure.
Talking to TOI, district magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma admitted, “The load on BHU labs, which are conducting tests of samples being sent here from over 10 linked districts of east UP region, has increased in the past fortnight. Thus, the backlog of samples started accumulating and the pendency of only Varanasi has gone above 7,000.”
The officials discussed the issue with their senior authorities in the state government and also BHU lab authorities. Sharma said, “It has been decided that for the next two-three days samples collected only in Varanasi district will be tested at the two labs of BHU in order to clear the backlog and ensure that no further delay is caused in beginning the treatment to those testing positive.” The BHU authorities said one lab is operating under Prof Gopal Nath and the other under Prog Royana Singh. Nath disclosed, “Each of these two labs of varsity are working with the capacity of testing over 2,000 samples per day. But, in the past few days the percentage of positive cases has gone above 20. As testing of samples is done with a pool test method, the increased number of positive cases are making the process time-taking. On the other hand, the volume of samples arriving at both the labs is above 2,500, creating a huge backlog.”
The DM said that once the backlog Varanasi samples are cleared, one of the two labs of BHU will test the samples collected in the district only to avoid problems of delay in declaration of test reports in future. Apart from streamlining the process of lab testing of Covid-19 samples, the officials are also taking action to ensure that the directive of chief minister Yogi Adityanath, issued during his recent visit, to increase the Covid facility of level-3 at BHU is complied. “Additional chief secretary and nodal officer for Varanasi Devesh Chaturvedi has held a meeting with BHU vice-chancellor Prof Rakesh Bhatnagar,” said the DM. “During this meeting expanding the L-3 facility by increasing the number of beds up to 300 in Covid ward as per the directive of CM was the main issue discussed,” he added.