Bengaluru, Apr 4 (UNI) Following approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the BSL-3 laboratory at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) will start testing COVID-19 samples from today.
With this, four government-approved labs in the city — NIV unit at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD), and the VRDL labs at the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, Command Hospital, and NIMHANS — will test COVID-19 samples for free. This apart, two private labs — Neuberg Anand Diagnostic Laboratory and Cancyte Technologies Pvt Ltd— are also authorised to conduct the test.
Dr V Ravi, senior professor and head of Neurovirology at NIMHANS, said the approval was accorded after NIMHANS took up trials and sent the reports to the ICMR on Friday. “The ICMR sent us the reagents on Thursday and will provide us more as and when required,” he added.