BHUBANESWAR: Technical glitches at two major laboratories in the State affecting Covid-19 tests for last few days has promoted Odisha Government to rope in a private laboratory to complete test of pending samples and overcome shortfall of test numbers. The daily number of tests in Odisha has dropped from 4,641 on May 30 to 2,933 on Wednesday after the Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) machines developed snags leading to piling up of samples.
Sources said, the Roche’s COBAS 6800 machine with a capacity to test over 1000 samples a day malfunctioned at the Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) hereas an electric short circuit at the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) lab affected the Covid-19 tests.With both labs hit, the test numbers dropped significantly. Contacted, Additional Chief Secretary of Health and Family Welfare department PK Mohapatra said the number of tests fell as the COBAS machine malfunctioned for the fourth time in nearly two months. An electric short circuit in the ILS lab also hampered the tests, he said.
To tide over the challenge, at the emergency procurement meeting on Thursday, Mohapatra said, it was decided to divert some samples to KIIT Technology Business Incubator (KIIT-TBI) which has been taken over by MSME department for temporary Covid-19 tests. “Tests will be conducted at KIIT TBI till the two labs are ready to handle the samples as per full capacity. As informed by RMRC, the COBAS machine is expected to be repaired by Friday evening,” he informed.
KIIT-TBI was established in 2009 for promoting innovations and entrepreneurship development and as a laboratory incubation centre, it has expanded its verticals in healthcare, biomedical and social incubation. Responding to the allegations on delay in tests of samples at some laboratories, Mohapatra said, in principle, it has been decided that no sample will remain untested beyond two days.Meanwhile, ILS Director Dr Ajay Parida said the RT-PCR machine was down for maintenance and has started testing samples from Thursday. “The tests will pick up from Friday,” he added. The number of tests had declined in the State when national test numbers rose significantly.