Corporates lend helping hand, provide 10,000 antigen testing kits

Corporates that have been actively involved in assisting the administration in providing ventilators, Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) and even setting up designated Covid-19 hospital since the onset of pandemic.

The district health department has received 10,000 antigen detection kits from private companies based in Gurugram to ramp up Covid-19 testing in the city.

A health worker works with a rapid antigen based Covid-19 test kit (Hindustan Times)

Corporates that have been actively involved in assisting the administration in providing ventilators, Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) and even setting up designated Covid-19 hospital since the onset of pandemic, are now approaching the health department to provide antigen detection kits under their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) fund, officials familiar with the matter said.

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“The department has received 10,000 antigen kits from corporates that are working with social organisation iamgurugaon. They have paid for the kits procured from the manufacturing unit in Manesar. Five to six other companies have also approached us to provide Covid-19 testing kits under their CSR funds. Also, state government will be allocating new kits,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer of the district.

A group of more than 20 companies — Gurugram Covid-19 Volunteers Group — that are running the Medeor Hospital in Manesar as designated Covid-19 hospital for patients requiring tertiary care, have now contributed almost ₹50 lakh in providing the testing kits to the health department.

The group comprises business leaders from McKinsey, MakeMyTrip, DLF, Harvest Gold, Nestle, Medanta-The Medicity, Clix Capital, Sembcorp, Renew Power, SRF Foundation, Tech Mahindra, Egon Zender among others, said Latika Thukral, co-founder, IamGurugram, a city-based NGO. The NGO has been coordinating with the corporates to providing assistance to the district administration in tackling the pandemic crises.

Taab Siddiqui, co-founder, Harvest Gold, who is a part of the group, said, “There was consensus among the members of the group to provide rapid antigen kits as testing is critical to the current pandemic situation. Only through testing, we can easily identify infected patients and give them required treatment, isolation or quarantine.” Siddiqui’s firm has pledged to donate ₹50 lakh under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) fund.

Thukral said the group has spent almost ₹3 crore for running the Medeor Hospital and they are ready to collaborate with the administration in further upgrading the facilities required to tackle the situation.

“The Covid-19 volunteer group is a collaboration of corporates in Gurugram. It started with supporting the underprivileged Covid-19 patients who could not afford treatment along with helping the administration in running the designated Covid-19 hospital. Though today not too many patients are hospitalised, we decided to provide antigen detection kits as it is the need of the hour. The administration also approached us in helping them with testing kits. Our focus is only on upgrading the facilities required to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Thukral.

Spokesperson of the DLF Foundation said they are providing over 2500 rapid antigen testing kits to health department.