The West Bengal government is preparing to test daily samples of COVID-19 lakh. (Representative)
Kolkata:
With the increase in coronavirus cases, the West Bengal government is preparing to test at least one COVID-19 lakh sample per day and has ordered advanced testing equipment from a Swiss-based pharmaceutical company, an official said on Saturday. .
The device, which can re-test coronaviruses on the Cobas 6800/8800 system, was ordered in May and is expected to arrive in mid-August.
The government of India has 4 to 5. One of them has been sent to the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, which is the CIRM body located in Calcutta.
Each of these machines can test 4,000 samples per day. With the acquisition of Bengal, this will mean 8,000 additional tests per day. Currently, Bengal performs 10,000 tests per day in more than 50 laboratories across the state.
The machine costs around Rs 3 Cr. A set of 50,000 test kits cost another Rs 2 Cr.
“The cost of carrying out 10,000 tests is 2 to 2.5 crore Rs. Once this system is in place, it will reduce expenses,” he said.
“We have technicians in the Department of Health and a few in the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) who know the Cobas system. Some are in training at the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine,” added the responsible.
The Cobas SARS-CoV-2 is a real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) device for qualitative testing on the Cobas 6800/8800 system to detect infection from specimens ” nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs, and it is approved by the World Health Organization (WHO).
