Indore: Covid strain test machine remains unusable even after 4 months 

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Indore has seen a surge in Covid cases lately, as there are about 23 active cases now but one of the worst affected cities by the pandemic has not been able to get the facility to test the strain of the virus even after three years of the outbreak.

Moreover, the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College got the machine from the World Health Organisation (WHO) through National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in November last year but it couldn’t be started even after four months as it does not have the reagents and test kits.

According to the medical college administration, both the installation of the machine and the training of the staff is complete.

A team of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had trained the staff of the college while experts of WHO installed the machine. MGM Medical College had received the machine after a long wait but it has not been able to start even after four months.

The machine is worth Rs 60 lakh while the college had sanctioned about Rs 6 lakhs to fulfil the requirements to get it installed. 

 “We are yet to receive the reagents and kits for testing the samples from WHO. We are expecting to receive the same at the earliest,” Dean Dr Sanjay Dixit said.

Initial samples tested in Indore would be sent to NCDC for confirmation and after a few rounds, MGM Medical College will get the approval to run the machine.

At present, samples of Covid-19 patients in Indore are being sent to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Delhi and AIIMS, Bhopal for genome sequencing to know about the variant of the coronavirus.