Nagpur: The Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital (IGGMCH) successfully installed all necessary infrastructure to test swab samples for suspected novel coronavirus infection after being declared a nodal laboratory for virus testing on January 31.
The only hospital in Central India to cater for Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and most of Madhya Pradesh will be IGGMC, popularly known as the Mayo Hospital. Swab samples from those areas will be sent to the hospital and only checked here. Reports are coming in within 48 hours.
IGGMCH Assistant Medical Superintendent Sagar Pandey said the hospital already had a machine called the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). “The reverse agent chemicals needed for the novel coronavirus test were received on 4 February. We told all authorities on Wednesday that the service is available now at IGGMCH. That will reduce the burden on the Pune laboratory of the National Institute of Virology (NIV). That will also ensure timely results for patients in Central India, “he added.
The central government decided to start research facilities in laboratories other than the one at NIV, Pune, to boost India’s readiness to deal with coronavirus. Apart from Nagpur, similar services have begun in Vandanam town, Kolkata, Secunderabad, Lucknow, Jaipur and Chennai at Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, NIV Kerala unit.
With the facility available at Mumbai’s Kasturba Hospital and IGGMCH, Nagpur, Maharashtra is the only state to have two such laboratories so far.
In Nagpur, a suspect isolation ward has been built by the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH). Two perpetrators have approached investigators at the GMCH to date. One of them was discharged after it was found negative about his papers.
Another middle-aged man submitted swab samples and is in isolation from his family. His reports are set to arrive from Pune on Thursday. Both samples will now go to IGGMCH factory.
