State govt to take call on augmenting testing facilities

SHILLONG: Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma has stressed on the need to ramp up the testing capacities as COVID cases continue to surge in the state.
Sangma on Friday said that the state government would soon decide whether to increase the number of RTPCR labs in the state.
The state at the moment has RTPCR labs in three places including NEIGRIHMS, Pasteur Institute and Tura Civil Hospital.
The chief minister also pointed out that testing technology is fast changing and new ones are coming up.
“In the beginning we had the RTPCR, then the antibody rapid test and now we have the rapid Antigen test which has come up which is a combination of both RTPCR and antigen test in one way”.
Asserting that the changing technology has made it easier for the government to do the testing and get results faster, he added that the state government is ensuring that the main centres should have all the facilities in large numbers to enable rapid testing in case there is a spike in the number of cases.
“We will take a call based on the situation but we would like to have a basic number of testing facilities and labs for testing and RTPCR in certain regions for the long run.
The state also had Truenat testing facilities in all the districts, except South West Khasi Hills and South West Garo Hills.