ITAHARI, March 29: As per the federal government's decision to test COVID-19 in each state, Province 1 has started testing throat swab to find whether a person is contracted with COVID-19.
The test began at B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS), Dharan. Microbiology laboratory of BPKIHS has got all technical and human resources to test the coronavirus, informed Dr Ashok Air, Deputy Spokesman of the famed teaching hospital of the province.
Speed up testing
"We have around 15 technical experts and can test around 20 throat swab in a day", he said, adding, "If we got proceeded swab from other labs of the State, we have capacity of test around 80 samples in a day." According to him, it had taken at least a week to get result of previous tests from the federal capital Kathmandu earlier. He, however, said there were no samples to test so far in the recently prepared laboratory. "We will test all possible suspected throat swabs in the days ahead", stated Dr Air.
Until Saturday, BPKIHS has sent 25 throat swabs to the National Laboratory of Teku, Kathmandu. Of which 16 have tested negative and other test results are awaited. According to Dhiren Limbu, Head of Microbiology Department at Dharan-based Central Campus of Technology, it takes around 4 to 5 hour to get result. "The test is carried out based on the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) which is easily detected in the advanced laboratory of BPKIHS", shared HOD Limbu.