Goa Medical College lab faces heavy pressure

GMC lab faces heavy pressure
Preetu Nair, TNN

PANAJI: With the number of blood samples being sent to the Goa Medical College and Hospital’s microbiology department to be tested for
chikungunya touching almost 40 a day, the directorate of health services (DHS) has decided not to collect samples from places where an outbreak has already been recorded and to limit the number of blood samples sent from new places recording symptoms of the disease to 5%.

The decision was conveyed to all state health officers by DHS deputy director, National Vector-Borne Disease Control Programme, Dr Deepak Kabadi on Wednesday at the department’s monthly meeting in Panaji. Sources said the decision was taken after GMC authorities, unable to deal with the large number of samples , requested the DHS not to send samples from places where an outbreak has already been recorded.

Dr Kabadi told TOI, “We have decided that once it is confirmed that there are cases of chikungunya in a particular locality we won’t send new blood samples from that area to GMC as this will only increase the load on the laboratory. In case of new areas, if the number of people showing chikungunya symptoms is small, samples of all of them will be sent for tests. However, if a large number of people show similar symptoms, 5% of the samples will be sent to GMC.”

The Times of India, Goa edition, 14 September 2009