ICMR asks medical colleges to apply for licences to conduct COVID-19 tests
April 08, 2020 22:39
In a bid to ramp up its testing capacity amid rising cases of coronavirus in the country, the Indian Council of Medical Research has invited applications from all government and private medical colleges for establishing COVID-19 testing facilities.
In its notice, the apex health research body said all medical colleges with infrastructure and expertise which includes availability of a BSL-2 level laboratory facility including a molecular biology setup for virological diagnosis and a functioning and calibrated biosafety cabinet type 2A/2B in the laboratory can apply.
Besides, they will have to have cold centrifuge/microfuge for RNA extraction, a functioning and calibrated real-time PCR machine and a minimum staff including a medical microbiologist and technicians among others.
The staff should have good understanding of laboratory biosafety and biosecurity, trained for handling respiratory samples for viral diagnosis, RNA extraction and real-time PCR, besides having experience of working in virology and handling clinical specimens, especially respiratory samples, the ICMR said.
Additionally, for all applicants from private medical colleges, it is essential to submit a copy of the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accreditation certificate and scope of accreditation for real-time PCR for RNA viruses, the ICMR said.
The health research body also listed equipment and consumable requirements for setting up a real time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing facility.
Head of Epidemiology and Communicable diseases at ICMR Raman R Gangakhedkar on Wednesday said 1,21,271 tests for COVID-19 have been done in the country so far.
Out of these, 13,345 tests were conducted on Tuesday and2,267 tests out of those have been done in private labs.
He further informed that 139 labs under the ICMR network are currently functional in the country while 65 private laboratories have been given approval for conducting COVID-19 tests. -- PTI
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