IICT Hyderabad to test Covid-19 samples

Council of Scientific & Industrial Research's Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) is set to become another testing laboratory in Telangana to conduct Covid-19 tests.

"We are waiting for approval from Indian Council of Medical Research," IICT Director S. Chandrashekar told IANS on Thursday.

The personnel from IICT are undergoing training at CSIR-Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB) to conduct the tests.

The CCMB, which is located next to IICT in Habsiguda here, has been testing Covid-19 samples from early April.

It was on the request of the Telangana government that the Centre agreed to turn CCMB into a testing facility. In addition to testing the samples, the CCMB is also training the health personnel from various institutes in Covid-19 testing.

Last week, the University of Hyderabad (UoH) was approved as a Covid-19 testing centre under the city clusters identified by the Central government's Department of Biotechnology.

The cluster in Hyderabad consists of CSIR-CCMB, CSIR-IICT, UoH, the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) and National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB).

CSIR-CCMB is the coordinating institution for the cluster.

Nine existing facilities are conducting Covid-19 tests in Telangana. They have the capacity to do 1,560 tests per day. The addition of IICT and UoH to the list will increase the state's capacity.

More than 16,000 samples have so far been tested in the state. Till April 22, the state reported 943 Covid cases. Out of these, 24 have died while 194 recovered and discharged from hospitals.

According to the state Health Department, 725 people are still undergoing treatment in various hospitals. IANS