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ICMR asks medical colleges to create COVID-19 testing facilities

ICMR asks medical colleges to create COVID-19 testing facilities

COVID-19 testing kits

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has invited applications from all government and private medical colleges for establishing COVID-19 testing facilities.

This is being done to strengthen the apex health research body's testing capacity in view of the rising number of coronavirus cases in the country.

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ICMR said the private medical colleges are required to submit a copy of the NABL accreditation certificate and scope of accreditation for real-time PCR for RNA viruses.

"These medical colleges should have the availability of a BSL-2 level laboratory facility along with molecular biology setup for virological diagnosis and functioning and calibrated Biosafety cabinet type 2A/2B in the laboratory can apply," ICMR said.

The requirement of cold centrifuge/microfuge for RNA extraction and functioning and calibrated real-time PCR machine is a must.

Besides, the medical microbiologists and technicians should have experience of work in virology and handling clinical specimens, especially respiratory samples.

They should also pose a good understanding of laboratory bio-safety and bio-security, trained for handling respiratory samples for viral diagnosis, RNA extraction and real-time PCR.

Till Wednesday there has been 5,274 COVID-19 cases in the country, an increase of 485 cases in the last 24 hours, and 149 deaths according to the Union Health Ministry.