In order to enhance the COVID-19 testing facilities in India, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Thursday invited applications from all government and private medical colleges for establishing a COVID-19 testing facility.
In its notice, the ICMR said that all medical colleges having a BSL-2 level laboratory facility including a molecular biology setup for virological diagnosis and a functioning and calibrated bio-safety cabinet type 2A/2B in the laboratory can apply.
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Moreover, medical colleges having cold centrifuge/microfuge for RNA extraction, a functioning and calibrated real-time PCR machine are also eligible to apply.
The medical colleges should also have one or more medical microbiologists, four or six technicians and one or more multi-task staff in order to be able to apply.
The staff should have good understanding of laboratory bio-safety and bio-security, trained for handling respiratory samples for viral diagnosis, RNA extraction and real-time PCR, besides having experience of working in virology and handling clinical specimens, especially respiratory samples, the ICMR said.
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Additionally, for all applicants from private medical colleges, it is essential to submit a copy of the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accreditation certificate and scope of accreditation for real-time PCR for RNA viruses, the ICMR said.
ICMR has conducted a total of 1,27,919 tests for COVID-19 in the country so far.