PM launches 3 high throughput COVID testing facilities at Kolkata, Mumbai and Noida

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi recently launched three high throughput COVID-19 testing facilities via video conferencing.

The three high-throughput testing facilities, set up strategically at ICMR-National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research, Noida; ICMR-National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health, Mumbai; and ICMR-National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Kolkata, will reportedly be able to test over 10,000 samples in a day.

These labs will also reduce turn-around-time and exposure of lab personnel to infectious clinical materials. The labs are enabled to test diseases other than COVID. Post the pandemic, they will be able to test for hepatitis B and C, HIV, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, cytomegalovirus, chlamydia, neisseria, dengue, etc.

Of the three systems, NICED, Kolkata has the country’s first cobas 8800 while NIRHH, Mumbai has the cobas 6800, both from Roche Diagnostics India.

The company’s cobas 6800/8800 systems reportedly provide test results in three and half hours and offer improved operating efficiency, flexibility and fastest time-to-results with the highest throughput providing up to 96 results in about three hours and a total of 384 results for the cobas 6800 System and 960 results for the cobas 8800 System in eight hours.

The test can be run simultaneously with other diagnostic assays provided by Roche Diagnostics, including HIV and hepatitis, according to a release.