A testing lab for COVID-19 will soon come up at Vashi General Hospital, making it the first such facility in Navi Mumbai. Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) Commissioner Annasaheb Misal said the lab will cost around ₹1 crore, of which ₹80 lakh will be spent on the machineries.
“We have started the process of tendering and once we finalise the specifications of the machines, we will place the advertisement inviting tenders,” NMMC health officer Balasaheb Sonawane, who is looking after the work of laboratory, said. Around five machines are required to conduct the tests. “Each machine has a separate function and once we have them, at least 200 tests could be conducted daily,” Mr. Misal said.
Mr. Sonawane said the State had, around 15 days ago, provided a machine to the NMMC, which primarily is used for testing tuberculosis. “It can be used for COVID-19 tests, but the capacity is of testing only two samples per day.”
The NMMC needs to hire around seven people to run the lab and the recruitment process is also going on. Once the infrastructure and machines are ready, a proposal will be sent to the Indian Council of Medical Research.
“After the proposal is sent, officials from Armed Forces Medical College in Pune will visit the lab to check the facilities before granting approval for testing COVID-19 samples,” Mr. Misal said.
According to Mr. Sonawane, if everything goes well, the lab should be ready in a month’s time.
