HYDERABAD: Telangana Health Minister Eatala Rajender on Friday inaugurated the molecular diagnostic centre at NIMS Hospital in Hyderabad, which he said, has been developed at a cost of Rs 6-7 crore. The lab also includes a Cobas 8800 machine by Roche, which can perform up to 4,000 RT-PCR tests in a single day.
With this, NIMS has become the first hospital in south India to possess the Cobas 8800 machine. Eatala said that this machine will help Telangana enhance its Covid-19 testing numbers, which currently has the capacity to conduct 20,000 RT-PCR tests in a day.
However, the usefulness of this machine is not limited only to testing for Covid-19 but it can also be used to run tests on samples for HIV and Hepatitis. Tests for the various detecting different viruses can be run simultaneously.
The Minister said that the organ transplant and other services have started again at NIMS and normalcy will be attained soon. Presently, of the 1,500 inpatient beds in the hospital, only 600 are occupied. He also said that soon a new OP block will also be developed in the hospital.
Eatala assured that the demand for hike in the salary of contract and outsourced staff in government hospitals is under active consideration and will soon be met. He added that the positivity rate for Covid-19 is coming down in Telangana and praised the citizens for taking necessary precautions.
Hetero launches Favipiravir in 800 mg dose
Hyderabad: The Hyderabad-based Hetero Drugs launched a ‘patient compliant pack’ of Favipiravir tablet for Covid-19 patients under the brand name ‘Favivir 800/200’. With the new pack patients will have to take only 32 tablets as part of the course. The usually available packs of the tablet are of 200 mg dose and according to the prescribed course of the medication, patients have to take 122 tablets. The Favivir 800/200 pack will contain 16 tablets of Favipiravir 800 mg and two tablets of Favipiravir 200 mg, priced at Rs 2,640. A media release by the company on Friday said, “The product will be made available at all retail medical outlets and hospital pharmacies across the country and sold only on prescription.”