BHUBANESWAR : All district headquarters in the State will have RT-PCR laboratories by the end of August. The laboratories were supposed to be set up by this month but the process was delayed as several districts failed to submit proposals on time. In May, the State government had announced to set up RT-PCR labs for Covid-19 tests in 17 districts to ensure early testing and identification of patients.
The new laboratories were to come up at Bhadrak, Dhenkanal, Jajpur, Gajapati, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Kandhamal, Boudh, Kendrapara, Khurda, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Nuapada, Bargarh, Rayagada, Sonepur and Sundargarh.
Though the Superintending Engineer (Buildings) had sought estimates from the districts by July 5 for allocation of funds for infrastructure, barring a few, the rest are yet to submit their proposals. After detection of Delta Plus variant in Deogarh district, the State government had decided to set up two more RT-PCR labs at Deogarh and Nayagarh. Sources said the districts were advised to send the estimate in order to develop one of the rooms at existing medical infrastructure as a bio-safety level-II lab with required repair and renovation works. But, some of the districts wanted to construct new laboratories leading to the confusion and delay.
After the issue cropped up during a recent review by Health department, Engineer-in-Chief (Civil) GC Sahu directed the executive engineers of the districts to submit estimates in consultation with CDMOs by July 12. They have been asked to bring the bottlenecks, if any, to the notice of higher authorities. People in the districts had to wait for four to five days for RT-PCR results during the first and second waves of the pandemic due to lack of facilities. The samples from these districts were tested mostly at Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Balasore, Balangir and Koraput.
While the Health department has approved the recruitment of staff including one microbiologist and three lab technicians for each shift of eight hours, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has sanctioned Rs 20 crore for setting up the laboratories. Additional Chief Secretary of Health PK Mohapatra said the districts have been asked to set up the laboratories at the existing facilities. “The machines have been procured and we expect 13 labs to be ready by August 15 and the rest by end of next month,” he added.