NEW DELHI, May 14: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday dedicated to the nation the COBAS 6800 testing machine to fight Covid-19. The Minister, who visited the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) where the machine is installed, highlighted the achievements in ramping up the testing capability.
He said, “We have now developed a capacity to conduct 1,00,000 tests a day. Today marks an important milestone as we have tested nearly 20 lakh people for Covid-19 mark at more than 500 laboratories, including 359 Government laboratories and 145 private laboratories in the country.” NCDC has been equipped with the COBAS 6800, a fully automated, high end machine for performing real time PCR testing Covid-19.
COBAS 6800 will provide quality, high-volume testing with a high throughput of test around 1,200 samples in 24 hours and will increase the testing capacity with reduction in pendency.
Describing COBAS 6800 as a “sophisticated machine”, he said it was enabled with robotics that minimises the chance of contamination as well as the risk of infection to the health care workers since it can be operated remotely with limited human intervention. As the machine requires a minimum BSL2+ containment level for testing, it cannot be placed at just any facility. COBAS 6800 can also detect other pathogens like Viral Hepatitis B & C, HIV, MTb (both rifampicin and isoniazide resistance), Papilloma, CMV, Chlamydia, and Neiserreia among others.
Expressing gratitude for the selfless services being rendered daily since the beginning of the pandemic, Dr Harsh Vardhan said, “I salute the pathologists, lab technicians, scientists and other staff who are our ‘Corona Warriors’ and working under tremendous risky conditions in their line of duty, day and night to save the fellow countrymen.” The nation needs to shun stigma and applaud the contribution of these frontline healthcare providers, he added.
He also lauded the dedication and hard work of all the surveillance officers and encouraged them to continue the fight with renewed vigour.
Referring to the heartening news that the last three days’ doubling time has slowed down to 13.9 days, while the doubling time in the past 14 days was 11.1, he said the fatality rate was 3.2 per cent and the recovery rate had further improved and today stood at 33.6 per cent, up from 32.83 per cent yesterday.
He also added that (as of yesterday) there are 3.0 per cent active Covid-19 patients in ICU, 0.39 per cent on ventilators and 2.7 per cent on oxygen support. There were 14 states/UTs, including Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, and Telangana that have not reported any cases of Covid-19 in past 24 hours.
As on today, a total of 78,003 cases have been reported from the country of whom 26,235 persons have been cured and 2,549 deaths had occurred. In the last 24 hours, 3,722 new confirmed cases have been added. The Union Health Minister also visited the Control Room and the Testing Laboratories, and reviewed the current status of Covid-19 testing with Dr S K Singh, Director (NCDC) and senior officials. (UNI)
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