Govt. Launched DBT – AMTZ Mobile Diagnostic Unit for Covid Testing- I-Lab

The Minister for Science & Technology, Earth Sciences and Health & Family Welfare inaugurated and flagged off India’s first I-Lab (Infectious disease diagnostic lab) for Covid testing in rural and inaccessible areas of India. It is the first lab of its kind in the country, has been developed jointly by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Andhra Pradesh Med-tech Zone (AMTZ), Asia’s first medical equipment manufacturing ecosystem.

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Key-Points

This mobile testing facility will be deployed through the DBT testing hubs to remote regions of the country for Covid testing.

This I-Lab has been created in a record time of 8 days by the Andhra Pradesh Med-tech team with the support of DBT.

The unit has bio-safety facility and is capable of performing RT-PCR as well as ELISA tests.

There are now over 20 hubs in the country with 100 testing laboratories and these have tested more than 2,60,000 samples.

A unique feature of this mobile testing lab is its utility in diagnosing other infectious diseases beyond the COVID-19 period.