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We’ll add to the stock. Present demand is only four or five kits per day

Kathmandu, March 15

Nepal’s health sector, which has limited stock of equipment to test coronavirus disease, is now facing another problem: shortage of kits to safely transport samples collected from suspected COVID-19 patients.

Nepal currently has only one laboratory to perform coronavirus tests. Samples collected from suspected coronavirus patients across the country are sent to the National Public Health Laboratory in Kathmandu. In other words, throat and nasal swabs of even those residing outside Kathmandu need to be sent to the NPHL to confirm whether they have contracted COVID-19.

These samples are transported in kits known as viral transport media. But the NPHL only has 1,000 such kits in its stock, which, according to medical experts, will not be enough if there is sudden rise in the number of infections, especially outside the valley.

The World Health Organisation strongly recommends the use of VTM whenever specimens cannot be taken to the labs promptly, because these kits allow storage of samples at a temperature of 2-8 degree Celsius.

“Cold chain should be maintained to keep the virus safe. If we fail to maintain the temperature, chances of the virus becoming inactive become high. It the virus goes inactive, we cannot get accurate results,” said NPHL Information Officer Rajesh Kumar Gupta.

At the moment, even private hospitals in Kathmandu are requesting the NPHL to

Read the full story on The Himalayan Times

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