Kolkata: Kolkata airport has placed bulk orders for the Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) kit following the command of the state government to test every international passenger on arrival at the city airport from this Monday – January 3.
Previously, only RT-PCR, only and fast PCR testing was available at the airport, which was being carried out by the Hindlabs – the Government of India – but because of the revised notification, the body of buying a bulk kit regularly to test around 550 odd passengers every day starting from Monday.
According to orders, 90% of passengers need to undergo mice and the rest to be tested with RT-PCR and those tested positively with the need for rats will undergo RT-PCR again.
“At present, there are around four international flights that arrive at the airport regularly, which means that around 600 passengers need to take the test every day.
Come on the order, around 540 of them will take mice and the rest must go for RT-PCR tests or Rapid PCR.
We have made the necessary arrangements and instructed the agency to keep the stock kit ready for 10 days, “said C Pattabhi, airport director.
The authorities have improved the RS 490 for a mandatory TEX test, whose report will be available within 20-30 minutes.
The cost of RT-PCR and fast PCR tests at the airport are Rs 600 and Rs 2,900.
Each report will be available within 6 hours and 45 minutes.
“Samples will be collected from passengers before immigration.
When they complete the Immigration procedure, they tend to get a report.
Our focus is to speed up the process and ensure there is no time crowding or unnecessary waiting for testing reports,” Pattabhi said.
To speed up the further process, the authorities added two additional sample collection stands in addition to eight available, which will attend international leaflets.
“Additional workers have also been sought to operate a booth to collect swab samples and carry out the testing process,” said an official.
The state government on December 30, has written to the Ministry of Civil Aviation to apply mandatory testing of all international passengers after scare Omicron and overall bursts in the Covid case in the state.
“With the effect of January 3, all passengers come to West Bengal from other non-risk countries by international flights, must undergo a test on arrival at their costs.
The airline entered randomly selected 10% of passengers for RT-PCR tests and balances 90% will undergo a rat test.
Those who were found positively in the antigen test that quickly had to undergo a RT-PCR test as requested and ordered by the health authority, “the letter said.