Mysore/Mysuru: To support the Mysuru District Administration in its fight against Coronavirus, city-based Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) will set up an advanced COVID Testing Laboratory to scale up testing process.
Mysuru Deputy Commissioner Abhiram G. Sankar told Star of Mysore that up to 300 samples per day can be tested in this lab. The laboratory is equipped with throat swab testing machines like the ones located at Viral Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) at the Department of Microbiology in K.R. Hospital and at COVID Testing Lab in JSS Hospital.
Apart from the VRDL and the JSS Hospital laboratories, the COVID Hospital on KRS Road has one more testing lab and there is “PARAKH- a Mobile Microbial Containment (BSL-3) Laboratory developed by Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) which has been stationed at K.R. Hospital premises. Also, there is an availability of 10,000 Rapid Antigen Kits in the District to scale up the testing process.
District Health Department sources said that in all likelihood, the CFTRI testing lab will be set up at Government Ayurveda and Panchakarma Hospital on KRS Road.
CFTRI sources told SOM that they are in the process of setting up the testing laboratory and a dedicated team has been formed for this purpose. “We are in the process of setting up the laboratory and as of now, we cannot divulge information about the actual date when the lab will be ready,” Dr. S.V.N. Vijayendra, Coordinator, CFTRI COVID testing laboratory, said.
It may be mentioned here that the CFTRI has already provided two Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machines and one RNA extraction unit to the District Administration. The COVID-19 infection is at present detected by a very sophisticated and precise technique called Real-Time PCR method. This PCR method involves extraction of the RNA of the virus from samples and amplification of the same using a PCR machine. A clear advantage of the PCR test is that it can detect the virus in a person at a very early stage, that is, even when symptoms emerge.
Precise and accurate testing is the need of the hour. Since the test is very sophisticated and is being done in select centres approved for testing by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the CFTRI is supporting the District authorities by way of adding to the capacity.
This white elephant called CFTRI is at least useful now. It has been an unmitigated waste of funds like its counterparts: the central labaratories, which did nothing except exporting its scientists to other countries! Look at NAL, which was meant to develop new general of aero engines, so that India can be self-sufficient in Jet fighters and civilian aircraft Todate , India purchased MIGs, Jaguars, SU-30S and now Rafles!
Just take the whole place, and use it for this purpose.
Corrections: new generation of aero engines. Rafales
CFTRI? Yes, the white elephant, white jaguar, white tiger and white lion, rolled together. Nehru sought the advice of P M S Blackett, the Nobel Prize winner to advise him, and these central laboratories were set up. None of them has delivered, and are , yes, unmitigated disasters. But their scientists who joined them did so, to build their resumes (CVs), that will land them in US, and thus many of them left.
I would set up such testing units including other infectious diseases, and close this edifice as a central lab.