Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated a mobile COVID-19 RT-PCR Lab at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in New Delhi on Monday. It has been jointly developed by Spice Health and the ICMR.

This testing lab and more such labs which are planned to be set up will help in adding more capacity to COVID-19 testing. The lab is accredited by NABL and approved by the ICMR.

These tests will be free of cost for the people. This initiative is a step in making COVID-19 testing affordable and more accessible to the common person.

The test report would be available within 6 to 8 hours from the time of sample collection compared to the average 24 to 48 hours taken by similar test reports.

The Home Ministry statement said Spice Health has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the ICMR for setting up testing facilities and collection centers across the country.

To begin with, the first testing facility has been set up in Delhi and more such testing facilities will come up in different parts of the National Capital over the coming days. It is planned to set up 10 labs in the first phase.

At the outset, each lab would be able to test up to 1,000 samples per day and testing would slowly be ramped up to 3,000 samples per day per lab.

In a tweet, Mr. Shah said, Narendra Modi government is committed to containing the spread of COVID-19 in Delhi and this lab will surely help in early detection and cure.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan was also present on the occasion.