On the auspicious day of July 27th, 2020, with the introduction Prof. Balram Bhargava, Secretary DHR & Director General of ICMR, a High throughput Viral Diagnostic Laboratory facility was inaugurated by Honorable Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi, in the presence of Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Shri. Yogi Adityanath, Shri Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare(MoHFW), and Shri.Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Govt of India, and other higher officials. The Unveiling of plaque was initiated through Video conferencing in presence of Dr. Shalini Singh, Director &In charge HTVDL, NICPR, NOIDA.
NICPR with its first phase of operation, designed and established labs for exclusive independent functions with partioned cabin rooms for sample receiving &sorting, sample aliquoting, RNA extraction, template addition, PCR reagent preparation, and Real-time PCR room. HTVDL has developed, standardized its own Standard Operating Procedures as per SOPS advised by ICMR and international bodies. HTVDL facility has progressively increased the testing potential from 100 to 500 samples and ramped up to the tune of 6000 cases per day in the month of October 2020. In HTVDL, Teams of scientists, technical officers, technicians, data entry operators working in different time batches to accomplish the huge task. The NICPR-HTVDL has accomplished successfully the challenge of 6500 samples testing per day and has attained 9300 samples/day of testing during challenging times. HTVDL has taken different strategies at times for testing, i.e whenever the positivity decreases below 5%, a pooling strategy of 5 samples to 10 samples was adopted, as per needs.
NICPR rendering its testing services to 2 Districts of Uttar Pradesh from Amroha, Moradabad, and Delhi.
In addition, NICPR was in the forefront in testing the Parliament samples for prompt reporting during parliament sessions in the month of September and October that includes the members of parliament, their families, associated members like security forces and families, press reporters, etc,
NICPR has successfully accomplished 21 Lakhs of sample testing till 09th January 2022 and still, we are ramping up our testing capability to the increased needs of the country. HTVDL stood its time and served tirelessly to the nation during the tough phases of pandemic and nationwide lockdown. Still, HTVDL marches successfully with highly committed staff to serve the nation.
