Noida: In the past half a year, the number of samples tested for Covid at the Government Medical Institute (GIMS) Molecular Diagnostics and Research Laboratory (MDRL) has risen from 50 to 12,000 per day.
The laboratory has managed to acquire an upscale automatic RT-PCR engine that can handle several samples while traveling, and the staff on Sundays say they are ready to overcome the third wave of pandemics.
The lab kicked Covid testing in April 2020, one month to Pandemi, and produced the first Covid test report on April 11.
It has a 15 core staff, but during the second covid wave peak, more than doubled this number of staff works all the time to make reports available on time.
Lab-in-charge informs that MDRL games are assets in the region.
Dr.
Vivek Gupta, Associate Professor, Pathology Department and responsible for MDRL, take assistance from Vinod Scaria, senior scientist at the scientific research board and Industrial Institute of Genomic and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB), Delhi, in the procurement of RT-PCR machines and Prepare a molecular diagnostic lab in GIMS.
“The lab was ready in ten days, and the first report was produced on April 11.
We started with 50 samples, and in one and a half years, we have added some high-end automatic RT-PCR machines that have a time turning six hours.
There is one Machines that can process 384 samples in a single way.
There are six who can process 96 respectively.
Each of the four RNA extractors processes 96 samples.
Someone has a 32 sample processing capacity.
“The laboratory has processed the sample from Gautam Budh Nagar, Ghaziabad and Some other districts.
“The laboratory has even served samples from Lucknow, Rampur, Baghpat, Mathura and Amroha for a fairly large duration.
In the past half a year, he has filtered more than 12.88 lakh samples.
This will add other feathers to the lid In March next year when the genome sequencing lab will be functional.
This will then handle the new Covid variant and help in making policies, “said Dr.
Gupta.
Dr.
Gupta adds a laboratory to be used for several future goals after the pandemic ends.
“Later, the Lab will have some uses such as screening disease, including cancer.
This will help do research work, too,” he said.
He further said that during the second wave, the laboratory worked all the time, and during the summit, filtered nearly 12,000 samples per day.
“After the case drops, the number of samples is reduced to 4,000.
But, with T he once again rises, the lab is ready Walk at full capacity, “he concluded.
For the staff, it was a sense of déjà vu.
“Last year, in October, almost 80% of staff had contracted viral diseases, but the lab did not stop work.
The staff returned to the lab as soon as they got better.
Fortunately, in the second wave, nothing was infected even when they entered 12 -14 working hours on stretching while working with a very contagious Delta variant.
I work 18-19 hours a day because my work starts with a sample that arrives and ends with a report uploaded to the portal.
At present, it is 12 hours, but I’m sure it’s It won’t be the same case after ten more days, “said Ram Pratap (26), Lab Supervisor.
Subham Mishra (20), a junior assistant who prepared the first Covid report, said, “We have worked for two waves and ready for the next.
We are now used to functioning under a high workload.
We take full precautions, but it is Our inner strength that helps us remain.
“His colleagues, Manish Nagar (22), who joined during the second wave, notified that most of the staff lived at the Hostel Institute so that their work was not affected.