Bhopal: With the number of coronavirus cases on the rise in Madhya Pradesh, the authorities of Barkatullah University have donated a testing machine to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhopal.
The Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RTPCR) machine, which is used in the university’s microbiology department for molecular identification of the genes, will help identify the infection in patients.
Head of the department Dr Anil Prakash said the RTPCR machine has the same capability as that of the machines being used in laboratories for coronavirus tests.
“We are aware of the molecular biology of COVID-19. Our machine can analyse 96 samples in about eight to nine hours,” he told News18.
The department has also deputed four student volunteers – two each at Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC) and Gandhi Medical College to help these institutions faced with a shortage of lab technicians for conducting COVID-19 tests.
The students said they readily agreed to volunteer at the hospitals during the crisis.
One of them, Yogeshwari Singh, a post-graduate student who joined the GMC laboratory in Bhopal with classmate Nishi Mewade, said they were told about it by their faculty members and they are willing to put as much effort as required.
“The physicians here have told us that shifts could stretch as the facility is working on a 24x7 basis. We are ready for the work,” said Singh.
Mewade said she agreed to volunteer for this cause as she considers it as national duty in the hour of crisis. When asked if they feared about getting infected, Mewade said proper safety measures were being adopted and hence, they are not worried.
PhD scholars Shailendra Singh Parihar and Ram Kushwah have volunteered for similar contribution at BMHRC, Bhopal. Stating that some of the research scholars are working at the AIIMS lab, Dr Prakash said more students are ready to volunteers in times of such a crisis.
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