The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has already saved over Rs 50 crore by setting up its own RT-PCR lab as it does not need to send samples of COVID-19 to private labs, claimed the civic administration. The civic body set its own Rt-PCR lab on August 4 2020 at Maa Saheb Minatai Thackeray Hospital in Nerul with an initial capacity of 1000 tests per day.
As per the data shared by the civic health department, a total of 4,56,000 COVID tests reports have already been generated from the state-of-art lab. Initially, when the civic body did not have its own lab, it had to send the reports to a private lab for which it had to up to Rs 2200 for each test report. However, by setting up its own lab, the civic body can generate at a maximum Rs 700 cost.
“There was also a delay in getting reports from private labs which was hampering in the early detection of infected persons,” said an official from the civic health department. He added that for effective implementation of COVID 19 management, the lab was set up which is now an asset and also saved money.
The lab, which is currently being used to test for COVID 19, will be used for testing for hepatitis, swine flu, leptospirosis, HIV, and other molecular tests in the future. “This fully automatic lab is a permanent milestone achievement for NMMC and self-sufficient empowerment of the Health Department,” said Bangar.
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Keeping the possible third of COVID in mind, the civic body has decided to expand the lab. “As per the experts, the number of active cases in the third wave of COVID may reach upto 25,000 and a maximum number of people will be tested.
In order to meet the demand, the capacity of the lab will be increased to 5000 per day,” said the official.
Even, the COVID report has been made available on the Corporation's COVID portal at https://www.nmmccovidcare.com. The report is uploaded soon after the report is available that citizens can view and print the report with a single click.
