Officials said on Thursday that Jharkhand has enough novel coronavirus testing kits to last more than a week, even as the state started the process to procure more kits from a Pune-based private firm anticipating a surge in samples to be tested.

“We have sufficient testing kits for Covid-19 both at MGM Medical College in Jamshedpur and RIMS in Ranchi, at least for over a week,” said principal secretary health, Nitin Madan Kulkarni. “All the testing kits had been brought from the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune and now we are trying to source the testing kits from other sources to meet the surge in demand.”

Highly placed sources source with the Covid-19 state control unit in Ranchi revealed that Pune-based molecular diagnostics company Mylab Discovery Solutions Private Limited has been approached to supply Covid-19 test kits “as soon as possible”.

Mylab last month developed the first made-in-India test kit for Covid-19. The Mylab PathoDetect Covid-19 Qualitative PCR kit is the first one to receive commercial approval from the Indian FDA/ Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).

“As of now we have two real time reverse transcriptase (RT)-PCR (polymerase chain reaction) machines each at MGM Medical College in Jamshedpur and at RIMS in Ranchi,” said a senior official at the Covid-19 control unit, requesting anonymity.

“Each of the machines has a capacity of testing nearly 42 samples a day, so in all probability both MGM and RIMS if they use two RT-PCR units can check 168 samples daily in total. We have nearly 1,500 RT-PCR testing kits at MGM and over 3,000 testing kits in RIMS,” the official said. “However, we apprehend a surge in the number of samples for testing in the coming days and have ordered nearly 10,000 more kits from Mylab and asked them to send them as soon as possible. We expect to have them in stock by next week,” he added.

A senior scientist at the MGM Medical College’s microbiology unit said that each RT-PCR kit can test 48 persons.

“We are not that much worried about testing kits as we have sufficient number of test kits. Each kit can test 48 samples. We are also not short of consumables like reagents as sufficient stock has been sent by NIV Pune last month,” the scientist said.

“The problem is with the number of samples which we can handle in a day as we have only two machines and each test requires at least two-three hours for confirmation and has to be run through a complicated process for second confirmation and then sent to NIV Pune for ratification. Thus, we would like to have more testing centres in the state,” he added.

State health minister Banna Gupta had last month said that the government was keen to start testing centres for the novel coronavirus at PMCH in Dhanbad, TB Sanatorium in Itki (near Ranchi) and a private hospital, Tata Main Hospital, in Jamshedpur.

The Dhanbad unit is likely to become operational in a few more days.