The much awaited and urgently required TrueNat Machine for detection of COVID-19 infection has finally arrived and installed in Tamenglong district of Manipur on Friday in an effort to address the several issues faced in the transportation and testing of samples for COVID-19 while the number of positive cases is rising rapidly. On Friday, the district reported 162 total tally of positive cases.
The TrueNat machine was installed at the chief medical office complex Tamenglong HQ in the presence of district deputy commissioner Armstrong Pame and medical staff.
A doctors’ team headed by Tamenglong Chief Medical Officer Dr Chambo Gonmei welcomed the technicians and appreciated its installation
Dr Chambo Gonmei expressed his sincere thanks to the government for providing a TrueNat machine considering the rising COVID-19 cases and the difficult situations faced in Tamenglong.
After installing the machine, technician Pantho Bhorali of Molbio company demonstrated how to use the machine. He said that the TrueNat machine actually can test over 30 disease conditions, including TB (the machine is known for this and is recommended by WHO), H1N1, malaria, influenza, HIV etc.
It just needs to change the test kits, he said, adding the same machine will be used to test any of the disease conditions, he added.
On Friday, with the report of 27 new confirmed cases, COVID-19 positive cases in the district surged to 162.
Tamenglong district currently has 148 active cases and 14 positive were reportedly recovered at the time of filing of this report. Also, no reports of casualty have been registered so far.
According to the District Task Force, at least 43 test results were received today and they are all negative.
As many as 162 COVID-19 positive patients are kept under COVID-19 care centre at Tamenglong higher secondary school. As many as 46 sample results are pending till the time of filling of this report.
Those staying in quarantine centres are agitated over delayed test reports and prolonged stay. There have been reports of confrontation between the inmates and the medical team. The medical staff had to face even physical assaults from the vexed inmates.
With the installation of the TrueNat machine in Tamenglong, it is hoped that the burden of medical staff and others will be relieved to some extent.
The medical staff has been combating the pandemic selflessly with utter dedication and long hours of work. Untold hardships or challenges were faced while transporting of COVID-19 patients, swabs samples of returnees through the dilapidated condition of road day and night despite an acute shortage of manpower in the department.
