The state laboratories may have increased their capacity to test COVID-19 cases, but it has begun to face the shortage of testing equipment.
Now that the testing kits for automatic virology machine are out of stock, the health department is left with manual ones.
The reports of the tests conducted through manual kits are received late. It also takes time to process test reports.
The state laboratories had the capacity to test 60 positive cases daily till March 23, but now, 2025 cases can be tested daily.
Swab samples are also being sent to Delhi for testing.
Since the kits are out of stock, process for testing will be slow. There are 20,000 manual kits. But the speed, with which the pandemic is spreading, may lead to shortage of such kits too.
According to additional chief secretary Mohd Suleman, the kits for automatic virology machine are out stock.
He said such kits were not available anywhere in the country. Suleman urged the Centre to make those kits available to the state.
According to sources, testing kits are not available anywhere in the world, and there may be a major problem in coming days.
Narottam raises issue before Harshwardhan
Health minister Narottam Mishra raised the issue of non-availability of testing kits before Union health minister Harshwardhan in a video-conferencing on Friday. Mishra said that the government was conducting corona tests very fast and that the state should be given enough kits for conducting tests. Most of the states raised the issue of testing kits in the video-conferencing of Harshwardhan.
