By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 3 Jun: CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun, a constituent National Laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has commenced COVID-19 patient samples testing by the Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) method. The newly developed state-of-the-art BSL-2+ facility was inaugurated today by Yugal Kishore Pant, Additional Secretary, Health, & Director, Medical Education, Uttarakhand. Dr Pankaj Singh and Dr Arjun Senger from the National Health Mission, Uttarakhand, were also present at the inaugural programme along with team CSIR-IIP led by the Institute Director, Dr Anjan Ray.
CSIR has made major commitments and recorded significant progress in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic with its five verticals viz. Surveillance, Diagnostics, Drugs, Hospital Assistive Devices and Supply Chain Logistics.
CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum has always believed in working for national causes. This facility is designed using a porta-cabin so that it can be replicated in remote areas, and is also a small part of CSIR’s large contribution to the COVID response effort. Testing of samples for COVID-19 is in line with protocols and standard operating procedures defined by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
With financial support from CSIR, IIP has established the RT-PCR based COVID-19 testing facility capable of processing about 100 patient samples per day with appropriately trained manpower and adequate bio-safety precautions, Dr Ray said.
This will augment the capacity of the few limited public testing facilities across Uttarakhand and help share the load of patient samples from the populous Dehradun district, which is currently supported for testing only by AIIMS (Rishikesh) and Doon Hospital.
The testing lab will be run by scientists Dr Debashish Ghosh, Dr Sunil K Suman, Dr Deepti Agrawal and Dr Diptarka Dasgupta along with trained technicians under the guidance of Dr T Bhasker, Head of the Department.
CSIR-IIP was in constant touch with the Uttarakhand health ministry and all government hospitals to make the facility fully operational and, today, initiated the sample testing for COVID19. CSIR-IIP has become an ICMR recognised lab for testing of COVID19; the Institute has also inked MoUs with AIIMS (Rishikesh) and Doon Hospital for guidance and test result validation. The Institute has started receiving testing kits from National Health Mission, Uttarakhand.
