Bengaluru: Karnataka has reached another historical milestone in the war against a pandemic with a Covid-19 test across a four-crore sign on Wednesday.
The majority is large – 81.4% – has gone through the RT-PCR method.
The state now has 3,338 Swab collection centers and 252 Covid-19 testing laboratories.
It’s been a long journey from mid 2020 when the country faces severe shortage of RT-PCR testing machines.
They were finally mobilized from university and agricultural microbiology testing laboratories and veterinary colleges.
Karnataka has violated the 3 Crore sign on June 3 and has tested one crore in the last 69 days.
Health Minister K Sudhakar said the country was the third in the country in the number of tests carried out.
Dr.
CN Manjunath, Nodal officers for Lab and testing, Covid-19 task unit, said the state is now equipped to deal with virus pandemics that can occur.
“Strong test capacity now.
Credit must be given to all technicians, microbiology, data entry operators and swab collectors,” he said.
Dr.
Manjunath said the focus now must be in the sequencing of the genome and its need is to increase the sample random sequencing of the current 5% to at least 10%.
“To check periodic virus mutations, we need to increase the genome sequencing.
This is a tiring process and requires trained technical staff and experts.” Dr V Ravi, Virology and members of the Covid Technical Advisory Committee, who played a role in establishing a Covid Laboratory in Bengaluru at the beginning of 2020 , said: “There is great support from the government in setting up kits and testing reagents.
We are in a good position now.” Of the total four crore tests, more than 3.2 crore is through RT-PCR.
More than 2.5 crore tests, or 63%, carried out in government laboratories while the private lab contributed more than 1.4 crore tests.
The authorities said the coordination between the Ministry of Health and the Welfare of the Family and the Ministry of Medical Education helped build RT-PCR facilities in all 63 medical colleges in Karnataka.
The current country has the capacity to carry out 1.8 lakh RPCR test a day, including more than one lakh sample in the government laboratory.
“Authorities ensure training and assistance to start the initial laboratory to enable them to function with their full capacity quickly.
All settings are carried out to provide important human resources, kits and consumables to run the laboratory in three shifts,” said the release of the Ministry of Health .