SHILLONG: After many complaints of unusual delay in getting COVID-19 test reports from different laboratories owing to imperfect internal arrangements, the state government has woken up for streamlining the system by apportioning the burden between NEIGRIHMS and Pasteur Institute.
Under the new arrangement, which will relieve NEIGRIMHS of the load for testing COVID-19 samples, the state-run Pasteur Institute has been tasked with testing samples of local residents, while NEIGRIHMS has been left to test only samples of returnees, central government employees, security personnel and armed forces personnel.
Informing this Commissioner and Secretary, Health department, P Sampath Kumar, hoped that this would help remove confusion and expedite test reports.
Asked if Pasteur Institute would not be overburdened, he told The Shillong Times, “Pasteur Institute has equal capacity or more with regard to testing. They only work two shifts, unlike NEIGRIHMS, which works three shifts. Samples of returnees and armed forces are being sent to NEIGRIHMS as a matter of plan and to free up the burden at NEIGRIHMS. Pasteur Institute works from 9 am to 9 pm with adequate manpower and a capacity of over 400 tests per day. Daily monitoring has been done so that there is no overburdening at Pasteur Institute”.
On August 11, a person with COVID-19 symptoms and his wife went to Nazareth Hospital for testing. While the wife, who tested positive, got the results on August 12. The test result of her husband was declared on August 13 morning.
When contacted about the delay, the administrator, Nazareth Hospital, said that the hospital had run out of cartridges for the GeneXpert testing equipment. She said the cartridges are normally supplied by the state government.
When this scribe drew the attention of Sampath Kumar to this undesirable situation, the latter clarified that cartridges of GeneXpert were kept in a different warehouse and there was a communication gap between which cartridges were required.
“By mistake, TrueNat cartridges were sent to Nazareth and, hence, the delay. The cartridges were later sent to the Hospital on August 12 itself and tests have resumed at Nazareth Hospital. The cartridges are in short supply across the country but we are expecting adequate supply within August 17”, Kumar said.
It may be mentioned that the cartridges for the GeneXpert testing equipment are imported from the US where they are manufactured.
