State Health Minister Banna Gupta on Wednesday approved the procurement of three additional RT PCR machines at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences to speed up the process of Covid testing in Ranchi, the worst affected district in terms of caseload in Jharkhand.

Chairing a virtual meeting of the governing board of the State-run hospital, Gupta, the chairman of the board said that in the wake of the growing cases of Covid-19 infection in the state, the government has decided to add more teeth to RIMS’ machinery.

“The additional RT PCR machines will help RIMS test more samples on a given day and also clear the backlogs,” said Gupta, adding that timely testing played a crucial role in identifying cases and limiting the spread of the virus during the second wave.

Gupta also approved the procurement of 256 CT Scan machines for the Radiology wing and Trauma Centre at RIMS, besides opening vacancies for four scientists and eight lab technicians in the Mircobiology wing of the largest State-run hospital in Jharkhand. The new recruitments, he said, will help in research related to viruses and other micro-organisms.

The sudden rise in demand for Covid tests flooded Ranchi labs with swab samples in the past couple of weeks, which eventually led to a delay of over 48 hours by private labs in providing RT PCR test reports to residents. As per NHM data, about 25,000 swab samples were still pending for tests. Even on Wednesday, some private labs admitted that it was taking more than two days to get RT PCR test results.

Amid an unprecedented rise in cases and casualties, the state is also facing a crisis of beds and medicines used for treating Covid patients, health officials said.

As per records with the National Health Mission (NHM), the state has been reporting more than 2000 fresh cases of infection and over a dozen Covid deaths every day on an average in the past one week.

The meeting on Wednesday was virtually attended by Health Secretary KK Soan, Ranchi MP Sanjay Seth and Kanke MLA Samri Lal. RIMS Director Dr. Kameshwar Prasad and other senior doctors of the hospital were also present, sources said.

Besides decisions related to strengthening the infrastructure for the fight against Covid-19 virus, Gupta on Wednesday also approved procurement of various equipment for the cardiology wing of RIMS. The equipment will help in cardiac surgeries and placing pacemakers in patients in need of such surgical interventions.

The state, however, is yet to get a genome sequencer to detect new and mutated strains of virus without having to send samples to Bhubaneshwar. Covid samples recently sent for genome sequencing confirmed the presence of double mutant and UK mutant strains of Covid-19 in Ranchi and Jamshedpur.