ICMR Kolkata counters Mamata govt. on Covid-19 test kit, says not getting enough samples
Kolkata/IBNS: Countering West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's claim that there were minimum Covid-19 test kits available in the state, the Director of ICMR-NICED in Kolkata, Shanta Dutta, on Monday confirmed that there was no shortage of Covid-19 test kits in their lab, but they were not getting enough samples from the state for test.
"There is no shortage of Covid-19 test kits in West Bengal as we currently have 27,500 test kits in our stock, we have bigger infrastructure than any other medical college in the state and manpower in our regional Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) is enough," ICMR-NICED director Shanta Dutta told IBNS.
"Surprisingly we are not getting enough samples for testing from the state government for last three-four consecutive days," Shanta Dutta said.
"We received 18 samples on Saturday (Apr 11) and only nine samples on Sunday (Apr 12) while around 20 samples have reached our VRDL so far on Monday," Dutta added.
"I don't know why the state government is sending such minimum number of samples for tests as it's a state's matter and only the state government can explain that," she said.
ICMR-NICED's director also claimed that the regional VRDL had received 42,500 kits from the ICMR headquarters so far in three consignments.
"Apart from sending 7,500 test kits to the West Bengal government-run medical colleges, we have dispatched some kits to Odisha and Port Blair as well," Shanta Dutta said.
According to a data shared by West Bengal government, 2523 samples have been tested for Covid-19 till Sunday 8 pm. which is the lowest among the larger states in the country.
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