ICMR asks medical colleges to create COVID-19 testing facilities

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.

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.

( With inputs from ANI )