In its battle against Coronavirus menace, Tripura Government has decided to broaden the scope testing facilities and take it to grass root level.
Eyeing to cover maximum population of the state in terms of Covid testing, the state government has taken initiatives to enable all the primary and community level health infrastructure so that they could carry out Covid tests even in the remote parts of the state, Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath said.
“There are altogether”, the minister said, “138 Primary Health Centers and Community Health Centers in the state and from now on the state has decided to engage all these infrastructure in mass testing of Covid 19”.
“We have decided to engage every single PHC and CHC in the job of testing. Each of the CHC and PHC will be directed to conduct 30 tests everyday—25 using rapid antigen test kits and the rest through RT-PCR kit. Entry points of the state such as Churaibari and Airport also do 500 to 700 tests everyday. In this way, we have a target of covering more than 2 lakhs people of the state on a daily average of 7,000 tests by one month”, Nath told reporters.
On the need of lab technicians for the tests and other resources, he said, “it is almost certain that with increasing tests, there will be a need for additional workforce. If there is any requirement for lab technicians, the state government will allow the hospitals to recruit lab technicians for a period on a flat honorarium structure of Rs 20,000 on Covid duty. Rationalization of manpower will be also done to achieve the targeted numbers, he added. Nath also said that three more machines would be installed along with the existing four machines to expedite the testing process and there would be testing facilities at Tripura Medical College, Udaipur and Dharmanagar very shortly.
