THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, December 26: The RTPCR lab in the Garhwa Sadar Hospital has been nonfunctional over the last many weeks.
Garhwa district epidemiologist Dr Santosh Kumar Mishra said that rats had damaged the wiring of the transformer of the biosafety cabinet.
Speaking to the Jharkhand Story correspondent late Monday night, Dr Mishra said, “As the wiring of a sophisticated transformer of the biosafety cabinet has been damaged by the rats, the RTPCR lab is unable to carry out any testing.”
Civil Surgeon alerted
Dr Mishra further said, “I have been repeatedly bringing this wiring damage matter to the notice of Civil Surgeon Dr Ashok Kumar.”
He said the civil surgeon will look into it in the coming week.
A Kolkata firm had set up the RTPCR lab in the Sadar Hospital last year.
Sources said the district epidemiologist and his team had worked hard for this RTPCR lab to be set up in the Sadar Hospital.
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Biosafety cabinet
On being asked if the biosafety cabinet is still under the warranty period, Dr Mishra said, “The warranty period has expired. Its repair will be payable.”
He said, “I have spoken to the Kolkata-based firm. It has hinted at Rs 40,000 to 45,000 expenditures on the repair of the wiring damaged by the rats.”
He said, “I strongly believe that this RTPCR lab must be in order when Covid cases are found across India. There is no Covid positive case in Garhwa, but it doesn’t give any of us any time for complacency.”
“It’s a new variant of Covid, to be most precise JN 1 type. It has loose motion complaints among other symptoms like cough, fever, body ache, etc.,” said Dr Mishra.
Covid alert
Sources said the Ministry of Health, Government of India had alerted the DCs, DMs, etc, of the 806 districts in India (this figure of the districts in India is up to November 20, 2023) for active surveillance, preventive measures, adequate testing for influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory infection and infrastructure preparedness at field level.
TrueNat test for COVID has been stopped now. It is now available for testing MTCB, popularly known as for tuberculosis.
Rapid Antigen test
Meanwhile, the district epidemiologist said, “We have directed our eight community health centres in this district to relaunch Rapid Antigen Test in the event of influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory infection cases and also where diarrhoea complaints come in.”
“Garhwa district has more than 9,400 kits for the Rapid Antigen Test. We are committed to providing testing facilities for people without delay, ” said Dr Mishra.
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