Kolkata: Laboratory in all covid-19 city testing will begin sending all positive samples with a CT value of less than 30 for the genome sequencing to detect the omicron variant.
This step arises after the direction of the State Health Department and will apply to samples collected in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area.
The value of the cycle threshold (CT) is the number of PCR cycles which are run on a swab sample to detect viral RNA and provide indirect viral load indications.
Genome sequencing workload will now be distributed by the Scientific Research Council and the Chemical Biology Institute (CSIR-IICB) Kolkata and Nibg, Kalyani.
The aim is to find out whether Omicron is being transmitted by the community.
“This direction is synchronized by the Uni Ministry of Health’s policy to determine whether there is an Omicron community transmission in several cities nationally, including Kolkata,” said a senior health department official.
“The higher the CT value, the lower the viral load and vice versa.
We also start looking for positive samples from patients in the KMC area so that this can be sent for the genome sequencing,” said Microbiology Shelly Sharma Ganguly, attached to the laboratory at Amri Hospital Salt Lake.
The laboratory to send a sample of twice weekend laboratories will send positive samples to tropical medical schools twice a week – Tuesday and Friday – from which this will be continued to the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG) Kalyani or CSIiricb Kolkata.
“The CT value above 30 implies a low viral load.
The sample above the value of CT 30 cannot have enough RNA load for sequencing genomes and also dispose of false negative possibilities on testing.
We have saved five samples separated for sequencing genomes and this will be Posted on Friday, “said Mikrobiologist Bhaskar Narayan Chaudhuri from Loanan Hospital.
So far, the Ministry of Health has sent a positive sample of only international leaflets to Nibmg Kalyani even though the CSIR-IICB lab in the V Sector is part of insacog, and closer to Kolkata.
“As part of Insacog, with Nodal Lab as Nibmg, our lab and the team led by scientists chakraborty and Siddik Sarkar are ready for this responsibility,” said Director of CSIR-IICB Arun Bandyopadhyay.
“There is a possibility that we have more omicron cases here, given the higher transmission Imunological words are watched by Ganguly, an IICB scientist.
Salt Lake Lab conducts a whole genome sequencing but especially for academic purposes and in samples from the collaboration of hospitals.
This is the first time it has been issued to increase genome sequencing for supervision.
Private hospital is a strengthening of the test protocol.
Amri sent a patient sample with a travel history to sort.
Leerless will add 50 covid beds.
Woodlands plans the Omicron TwoBed isolation unit.