Mumbai: Civic genome lab to start within a week

The decision to get the lab at Kasturba hospital was made a few months ago. File pic

The most awaited lab, meant for the genome sequencing of the Coronavirus, is expected to start within a week at the civic-run Kasturba hospital. The lab's work is expected to give direction in the prevention of the spread of Covid-19 and formalise a treatment protocol. The BMC currently sends samples to a national centre and the results take two to three months to arrive. With the lab, the civic body can get results within two to three days.

Two weeks ago, results from the National Institute of Virology at Pune showed that the city had two cases of the Delta Plus variant, which created panic. Civic officials said that the cases were from April and both patients recovered. With the long processing time of two months, tracing close contacts and containing the spread of the virus becomes a difficult task.

Until now, the BMC has collected over 600 samples of suspected Delta variants. "There is a load on the lab as suspected samples from all over the country come to the institute. We used to get the result after two to three months, which is not viable for immediate action to contain the spread or change treatments. Even the number of samples to be sent is restricted. So we need a lab to lessen our dependency on the national centre," said a BMC officer.

It is not just Delta Plus, but also other potential variants of the virus that may become a cause for concern. The corporation had decided to set up the lab at Kasturba a few months ago and finally, all procedures have been completed and the lab is going to start at Mahalaxmi.

Research in long-run

"The lab will start within a week. We expect to get the results within two to three days instead of two to three months. This can help analyse the situation immediately," said Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner. He added that the aim is to research mutations in a long run. "The lab will analyse samples that will be collected randomly. They may be collected from a cluster of cases - be it close relations or in an area where cases increased sharply. It may also be a sample from a patient who died afterwards. The situations may differ and the study will help us formalise procedures for prevention and treatment," Kakani said.

The Kasturba molecular diagnostic lab has already started working with Haystack Analytics, an IIT-Bombay start-up, to analyse the sequencing. So far, more than 150 samples have been sequenced under the collaboration. The study will help understand the transmission and severity of the virus which changes from time to time. It will help tackle the pandemic in a long term.

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Samples of suspected Delta variants collected by BMC