New Delhi: Hiring more staff and ramping up infrastructure are some of the steps being taken by laboratories in Delhi as more people get themselves tested amid a surge in Covid cases, triggered by the Omicron variant. Besides these, some have opened walk-in centres and plan to expand the capacity of their central testing labs, where samples are processed, and collection capacity.
Opting for these measures has become imperative as unlike the last wave of the Covid pandemic, this time the surge has been sudden, just in a couple of days, laboratories said.
"We have made a testing capacity of 7,000 samples a day in Delhi, which can be ramped up to 10,000-15,000 a day. Besides this, we have also expanded our capacity for
sample collection," executive chairman of Dr Lal Path Labs, Arvind Lal said.
"So far, we are placed well in Delhi and across India, but the burden is increasing," he said, adding that Dr Lal Path Labs has about 21 laboratories
in the country and in case, sample load increases on labs in Delhi, they will be sent to a facility in Gurugram.
On Thursday, Delhi reported 15,097 fresh Covid cases, the highest single-day rise since May 8 last year, and six deaths as the positivity rate mounted to 15.34 per cent, while authorities said around 90,000 tests were conducted on Tuesday and over 98,000 tests on Wednesday.
Laboratories said that with rising number of people coming for tests, strict safety protocols are being followed to protect staffers from contracting the disease, especially those collecting samples.
"The surge has been sudden. The graph has been too vertical and we weren't expecting such a severe surge," chief executive officer of Dr Dangs Lab, Arjun Dang, said. Dang said that they have invested a lot in the last six months in their molecular biology lab.
"We have participated in vaccine trials, and in September, October and November, we were processing as many samples as much as we are processing currently. During such trials, samples need to be processed quickly like within 24 hours. We have increased our infrastructure and manpower," he said.
The lab has been testing around 1,000 samples every day, Dang said.