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Testing hub RMRI battles machine snag, infected staff
PATNA The sudden upsurge in the Covid-19 cases has taken its toll not only on people, but also on the state’s biggest RT-PCR testing facility at the Rajendra Memorial Research Institute (RMRI), a unit of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)
PATNA
The sudden upsurge in the Covid-19 cases has taken its toll not only on people, but also on the state’s biggest RT-PCR testing facility at the Rajendra Memorial Research Institute (RMRI), a unit of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
A large number of its scientists and staff have themselves tested positive, perhaps due to continuous testing of swabs, mainly from Patna. To make things more difficult, one of the machines, COBAS-6800, has also developed snag, bringing down the number of tests daily for the last three days. It has come down from 4,000-4,500 tests carried every day till 4-5 days ago to around 1,500-2,000.
While RMRI was the sole testing lab last year in the state, it has now quite a few, including at AIIMS, PMCH, IGIMS etc. However, RMRI still accounts for around 30%-40% of tests in the state.
“In the midst of pandemic, my entire team is working round-the-clock. The COBAS-6800, given by ICMR, is a fully automated high-end machine for performing real-time Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) and it could handle 1,100 samples in 24 hours. We have got the repairs done Sunday and it should be operational by evening. The capacity will again go up,” said RMRI director Dr Krishna Pandey, who is himself from clinical medicine discipline.
Apart from COBAS, RMRI also has Magnapure automatic RNA extraction machine given by the Bihar government and manual RT-PCR, though it is also facing challenge on another front – growing positivity among its scientists and staff. According to a senior official, nearly 10 of the 18 scientists have tested positive, while several staff members and technicians have also gone into isolation after developing symptoms and undergoing tests.
Pandey said infection was a reality in the prevailing situation. “But both ICMR and Bihar government are extending help by way to manpower. ICMR has accepted our proposal for increase in manpower till June, which would most likely be extended up to September. The Bihar government has also provided 17-18 employees for data entry and have also asked for further requirement,” he said.
A senior official said that due to major increase in positivity rate, the number of samples has increased, while several staff members have also tested positive. “This may be the reason behind some delay in test reports, but things will be alright. On Saturday, there were around 2,860 pending samples. The government is consciously trying to augment resources. Another COBAS machine at AIIMS has also arrived,” he said.
