Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Even as the city’s long wait to get a genome sequencing machine to study the variants of Covid-19 virus have come to an end, citizens would not be benefitted as the installation will take at least for a month more.
The Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College administration received the state-of-the-art machine from the World Health Organization (WHO) on November 27 but its installation process is moving at a snail’s pace.
According to dean of MGM Medical College Dr Sanjay Dixit, Installation of the machine is underway and it would be completed at the earliest. “We have received a machine worth Rs 60 lakh from the WHO. We had sanctioned about Rs 6 lakhs to fulfil the requirements to get it installed and it would take about a month’s time… we are trying our best to do it as early as possible,” Dr Dixit said.
Talking about the availability of testing agents and kits, the dean said WHO will provide the same and the initial testing would be done in collaboration with the experts of MGM Medical College and WHO.
Indore has got the machine after more than two years since the outbreak of the disease. 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 prevalent coronavirus.
A private hospital in the city too has the sequencing facility but the government doesn’t rely on it.
Worst-hit Indore got reports in 15 to 20 days
As many as 2,12,518 cases were found positive in the city and as many as 1,469 patients lost their lives. As many as nine cases of Omicron were also tested positive in Indore but the samples were tested by a private laboratory.
