OSD Health Reviews COVID-19 Testing Process In Kashmir

SRINAGAR: Officer on Special Duty, Health, Dr Owais Ahmed, on Thursday reviewed ongoing sampling and testing in Kashmir division, here at a meeting.

Various issues with respect to the functioning of all three covid-19 testing labs of Kashmir division including receipt of samples from districts, coding of samples and their processing were discussed at length.

The meeting stressed on maintaining close coordination between the field agencies and the labs so as to expedite the testing process and to make the reports available to the concerned immediately after testing.

It was decided that the collection center of each lab will have a well-coordinated mechanism of receipt of samples, their coding and decoding and subsequent testing.

The meeting was informed that the ongoing sampling is going on smoothly both for contacts of positive cases and travelers reaching Kashmir division.

The pool of technical staff trained for sampling is taking samples both at the block level and village level through testing kiosks and mobile sampling teams. The sampling teams of the districts were advised to ensure that the samples collected by them reach testing labs well in time to ensure quick testing and reporting of results to the concerned.

Underling the need for further increase in testing capacity in Kashmir division, it was appreciated that the labs functioning in the division have been able to increase their testing capacity by 20 times since March 2020 and the team of microbiologists was working 24 X 7 to expedite the testing process.

The meeting noted that due to these concerted efforts Jammu and Kashmir has been able to conduct the highest number of tests per million in the country.

The meeting was attended by HOD and Nodal Officer SKIMS, Srinagar, Dr Ghulam Hassan Yatoo; CMO Srinagar, Dr Jehangir Bakshi; Divisional Coordinator for Sampling, Kashmir, Dr Talat Jabeen; Nodal Officer Microbiology GMC Srinagar, Dr Nayeem ud din; Coordinator SKIMS-MC JVC, Srinagar, Dr Talat Masoodi and others.

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