Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala health department has revised the guidelines for conducting RT-PCR tests at the government, private, mobile and static laboratories in the state to ascertain COVID-19 cases.
Though RT-PCR tests are currently being carried out at the government and accredited private labs, the guidelines have been revised to make the testing more effective.
If samples beyond the testing capacity of the government labs are received, these can be sent to the accredited private labs.
The government had earlier announced that free RT-PCR tests would be carried out for international passengers at the airports. The private labs that offer this facility would be reimbursed of all the charges at the rate of Rs 448. All these labs will have to carry out the tests and upload the results within 24 hours.
The RT-PCR mobile laboratories were set up to quickly carry out tests in regions hgit hard by COVID-19 and identify the infected. Mobile laboratories are available at airports, containment zones, clusters, and workplaces.
Mobile laboratories should levy only Rs 448, including all charges, for the RT-PCR tests.
Guidelines should be strictly followed for all procedures such as taking samples, testing, uploading results and waste management. The test results should be uploaded within 24 hours. If the test results are positive, they should be conveyed immediately to the patient and the surveillance team should take over.
(RT-PCR denotes a laboratory technique mainly used to measure the amount of a specific RNA. It stands for Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction. The process involves combining reverse transcription of RNA into the DNA and amplification of specific DNA targets using polymerase chain reaction.)
