GUWAHATI: Assam Health Department’s efforts to augment the sample testing capacity to detect COVID-19 positives cases as early as possible has received a shot in the arm with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) giving accreditation to the laboratory at Diphu Medical College and Hospital in Karbi Anglong district of the state.
This will be a boon for the health department’s efforts to carry out testing of two lakh samples by mid-June at the rate of 10,000 samples per day. This will help the state to cover maximum number of people now under quarantine at the earliest so that those with COVID-19 infection could be detected soon so as to prevent social transmission of diseases.
Early testing of samples also helps the health authorities to reduce the period of institutional quarantine to four days from seven days as the state is fast running out of space for institutional quarantine.
State Health Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma informed that with ICMR according recognition to the laboratory at Diphu Medical College, each of the seven medical colleges in the state now has an ICMR-accredited COVID testing laboratory.
In addition, there are two more testing facilities for COVID in the state – one at Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) of ICMR at Lahowal in Dibrugarh and another at North East Institute of Science and Technology (NEIST), Jorhat. The laboratory at the NEIST at Jorhat was inaugurated on June 2 last by the Health Minister, Dr Sarma.