NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday inaugurated a mobile Covid-19 RT-PCR lab at the Indian Council of Medical Research here, jointly launched by SpiceHealth and the ICMR.
This testing lab and more such labs which are planned to be set up, are aimed at helping in adding more capacity to Covid-19 testing.
The lab is accredited by NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) and approved by the ICMR. The RT-PCR tests, considered more accurate, will be offered at just Rs 499 at the labs and the cost of testing will be borne by the ICMR.
“This initiative is a step in making Covid-19 testing affordable and more accessible to the common person,” said a statement by the government.
The test report would be available within 6 to 8 hours from the time of sample collection compared to the average 24 to 48 hours taken by similar test reports.
SpiceHealth has signed a memorandum of understanding with the ICMR for setting up testing facilities (laboratories) and collection centres across the country. To begin with, the first testing facility has been set up in Delhi.
More such testing facilities will come up in different parts of the national capital over the coming days. It is planned to set up 10 labs in the first phase.
At the outset, each lab would be able to test up to 1,000 samples per day but the capacity will be ramped up to and testing would slowly be ramped up to 3,000 samples per day per lab.