Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 31: Kuldeep Kumar Rao, an active member of Movement for Peace, Equality & Justice, in a press release issued here said that it is very unfortunate that GMC, Jammu has not yet BSL-3 lab & more trained staff for testing dreaded virus. As the COVID-19 testing must be done in a BSL-3 lab but as it is not yet ready in GMC, Jammu, is being done in centrally funded BSL-2 lab of microbiology Department which does not adequate testing capacity due to lack of proper infrastructure & trained lab personnel. The existing capacity of the GMC team is only 40 samples per day but in last two-three days several suspects of COVID-19 have been traced out in Rajouri, Udhampur, Samba & Jammu Districts & they need to be tested immediately but with limited trained staff & in the absence of BSL-3 lab the Institution is feeling helpless of the higher authorities to conduct the tests and do their reporting the same day. Mr. Rao lamented that despite adequate funding & lapse of about 5 years even after its announcement, the administration of GMC Jammu has failed to establish BSL-3 lab while the same is functional in Kashmir since 2017 although both the labs were announced simultaneously which need to be investigated by an independent agency. |
