Amid Covid-19 crisis, Rajasthan hit by shortage of automatic RNA extraction kits
The shortage has reduced the testing capacity to half and the state had to send 4,000 samples to a Delhi lab on Sunday to clear the backlog.
Even as Rajasthan conducts more tests per million population than the national average for coronavirus disease (Covid-19), its biggest testing centre – SMS Hospital in Jaipur – is hit by a shortage of automatic RNA extraction kits. This has reduced the testing capacity to half and the state had to send 4,000 samples to a Delhi lab on Sunday to clear the backlog, said a top health official on Monday.
The Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) testing process for Covid-19 requires a Viral Transport Medium (VTM) kit to take the sample to a lab. The process requires an RNA extraction machine, automatic or manual, to extract ribonucleic acid, and an RT-PCR machine where the extracted RNA is amplified to study the viral load to confirm the presence of Sars-CoV-2.
The VTMs and kits for RT-PCR machines are provided to the states by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) but the RNA extraction kits, which are proprietary items, have to be procured by the states from the manufactures of the machines.
SMS Hospital has automatic RNA extraction machines from Easymag (France), Qaigen (Germany), Maxwell (US) and Perkin (US), said Rohit Kumar Singh, state additional chief secretary, medical and health department. These companies also provide kits to European and American labs, resulting in a delay in supply to Indian labs.
Rajasthan government has proposed central procurement of these kits by the Government of India for their availability to states.
“On Sunday, we had kits to last us three days. We have placed orders for 150,000 kits from these four companies. In the meantime, we decided to send 4,000 samples to a private lab in Delhi to clear the backlog,” Singh said.
According to the 9 pm bulletin released by the state health department on Monday, 8,057 samples were under process at SMS Hospital.
Currently, RT-PCR testing for Covid-19 is being done in 7 out of 14 government medical colleges in Rajasthan. All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Jodhpur, also has a testing lab. The seven medical colleges include SMS Medical College in Jaipur whose associate hospital SMS Hospital is the only lab with automatic nuclear extraction machines; the remaining do it manually. Rajasthan’s testing capacity is 3,000 samples a day.
The state government is ramping up its testing capacity to 10,000. For this, it has ordered PCR machines for all its 33 districts and automatic RNA extraction machines for the remaining seven medical colleges.
“All 14 medical colleges will soon have a testing facility. Automatic RNA extraction machines are being procured from Qaigen, Parkin, Thermo and Backman Coulter for all medical colleges. We have placed an order for 10,000 kits with each machine at the time of delivery,” the Singh added.
He said the state government realizes that the only way to contain health emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic is to build infrastructure to test, contain and treat. “The idea is to use this crisis as an opportunity to strengthen public health infrastructure,” he said.
