HOW DOES CORONAVIRUS IDENTIFIED IN INDIA’S LABS

Coronavirus has been in the news since last 02 months. On the morning of 9 March, 40 cases were found positive in India, which has now increased to about 70 or more.

But how does one know who has Coronavirus infection and who doesn't? From the identity of the patient to the list of WHO, we will know about the procedure here.

There are 02 stages of test of Coronavirus, first PRELIMS and second FINAL.

In the PRELIMS stage, the patient suspects that the patient may have an infection, and in the FINAL stage it is confirmed that the patient is infected with Coronavirus.

The name of the organization that conducts all these investigations is ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research). Just as there are exam centres in the whole country, ICMR has started the system of test laboratory in the whole country.

There are 52 laboratories in the country for the prelims test. You will find this list on ICMR website. In which state, in which city are these laboratories? All these information will be found in the list available on the ICMR website (https://www.icmr.nic.in/).

First let us tell you, whose test is done?

ICMR has decided that only those people will be investigated first with whom these three things will happen.

1.    Those who do not have good symptoms and who have returned from countries with infections ( Symptoms like fever, sore throat,  running nose, dyspnea etc.) individual returned from affected countries  (China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Iran, Italy etc.).

2.    Close contacts of confirmed positive cases of COVID – 19 infection.

3.    All individuals evacuated and quarantined from Wuhan, China and Diamond Princess Ship, Japan.

So these people will be screened at the prelims stage and their samples will be sent to the nearest centres out of 52 centres.

Than which type of samples?

Samples extracted from the nose or throat, investigator extract sample from throat with the help of something like spoon type of thing.

Because it is a respiratory disease, infection is definitely in the nose and throat.

This sample has a PCR test in the lab. Meaning Polymerase Chain Reaction.

If a gene resembling the DNA or RNA of the virus is present in the sample, then it is carried forward as a test positive. But the accuracy of this test is not correct. Therefore samples with positive are carried forward for final test.

Final test takes place in Pune.

National Institute of Virology, Pune.

Here the sample is compared to Vuhan virus. Meaning this is a complete test. This lab of NIV is included in the feature list of WHO. When the NIV lab assigns a positive declaration to a test, then the Health Ministry announces it and only then this case is included in the list of WHO.