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Gurugram: SGT hospital gets nod for RT-PCR tests for Covid-19
Gurugram: The SGT Medical College Hospital and Research Institute in Chandu Budhera, located on the outskirts of Gurugram, will soon initiate reverse transcription
Gurugram: The SGT Medical College Hospital and Research Institute in Chandu Budhera, located on the outskirts of Gurugram, will soon initiate reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests on its campus. The college had been awaiting approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) since the last couple of months, which was granted Friday.
RT-PCR tests are used for detecting Sars-Cov-2 (the virus that causes the coronavirus (Covid-19) disease) in suspected patients and are often considered the gold standard in front-line testing for Covid-19, as per experts.
Dr Mukesh Sharma, microbiologist, SGT College, said the college would be initiating the process soon. “We have received all necessary permissions from Chandigarh and the ICMR. Our lab can test up to 300-400 samples every day,” said Sharma. He added that he’d be visiting the chief medical officer (CMO) on Monday to apprise him of the development, before the college starts with the testing process.
In its approval letter, the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, said that the college had been permitted to carry out the testing for Covid-19 by RT-PCR after it was found to have existing infrastructure, facilities for testing, and trained manpower, Eighty beds are reserved in the college for Covid-19 patients. Earlier, a quarantine facility was also set up for overseas travellers. Currently, at least four Covid-19 patients are admitted at SGT.
A government lab for RT-PCR testing is already running at the Civil Hospital in Sector 10. The lab has a capacity for 300 samples. Besides these, the government lab at Post Graduate Institute of Medical
Sciences (PGIMS) Rohtak, and seven private labs are available for testing in the city.
Gurugram chief medical officer Dr Virender Yadav said the health department was making all efforts to ramp up testing. He said trial runs for the upcoming second RT-PCR lab at the Civil Hospital were underway and the facility could start full-fledged anytime this week. “With the second lab, we would have an in-house capacity of 500 samples. We want that sooner or later, all samples are tested at government facilities entirely. We are prepared for it and reports are already coming in within 24 hours now,” said Yadav.
The health department is also carrying out antigen tests across different pockets of Gurugram. The department aims to scale up antigen testing up to 2,000 in coming days, said Yadav.
Besides RT-PCR and antigen testing, the health department has also been using the TrueNat test for critical cases and pregnant women, who delivered through caesarean sections. It is also used for Covid-19 detection in people who are brought dead to the hospital. Like RT-PCR, throat and nasal swabs are collected for TruNat test in the viral transport medium (VTM) with virus lysis buffer, which inactivates the virus, after which the test is conducted on RT-PCR chips. These chips are inserted inside the TrueNat diagnostic tool.
