RAJSHAHI, April 14, 2020 (BSS) – A total of 83 more samples were tested here on Monday taking the total number of tested samples to 543 since the start of the laboratory on April 1, an official said here today.
The samples were tested in the regional laboratory installed in the Department of Virology in Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH) to detect coronavirus (COVID-19).
Prof Dr Sabera Gulnahar, head of the virology department and in-charge of the laboratory, said 87 more samples were collected from different districts in Rajshahi division for testing today (Tuesday).
The laboratory has been established through installing all requisite equipment, including the Polymerase Chain Reaction, widely known as PCR, she added.
Prof Gulnahar said a 30-member technical team comprising doctors and technologists from the RMCH’s departments of microbiology, virology and biochemistry has been deployed to run the laboratory properly.
The team is collecting samples under supervision of all the authorities concerned including Surveillance Immunization Medical Officers of the World Health Organisation.
Subsequently, the collected samples are being tested in the laboratory here through using the PCR machine to get correct results and accordingly the test results are being sent to the IEDCR in Dhaka every day, she added.
Meanwhile, one more coronavirus sample testing laboratory is going to be established in RMCH as it has already received another PCR machine that will be used for identification of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
The laboratory will be installed at RMCH’s High Dependency Unit (HDU) that will bring furthermore dynamism into the field of bringing all the coronavirus suspected people under testing in the region.
RMCH Director Brig Gen Jamilur Rahman said testing for coronavirus would be possible in the upcoming laboratory when the Public Works Department completes the installation of the machine hardly within a week.
He said the laboratory will help lessen the gradually mounting pressure on the first one.