State mulls Covid testing facilities at OPDs of med colleges

Kolkata: The state Health department plans to introduce Covid testing facilities at the Out Patient Departments (OPDs) of various medical colleges in the city to cover a maximum number of people. Senior health officials will, however, look into various aspects before starting the new initiative.

The Health department has increased infrastructure to conduct more tests across the state. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had also urged the state government to increase the number of Covid tests per day. The Bengal government has already crossed 17,000 tests per day. The Health department is confident that the daily pandemic tests would touch 25,000 within the second week of August. Once the Cobas machine that has been installed at NICED is made operational, the number would go up further. The state government will also import eight other Cobas machines from Switzerland as it has a target to carry out 1 lakh tests per day.

All the medical colleges and hospitals in the city and various other government-run hospitals across the state have been running fever clinics where suspected patients can visit for Covid tests. The fever clinics at the medical colleges are also over-burdened. Covid tests are also performed on patients who are requiring admission in various departments of the medical colleges. Even most of the isolation wards set up in various hospitals and medical colleges for suspected Covid patients have been filled up. The demand for Covid tests has gone to such an extent that people are making phone calls to fever clinics of the hospitals urging them to collect swab samples from their houses. The Health department is trying to perform tests among the patients visiting various OPDs.