I-Lab

• The Minister for Science & Technology, Earth Sciences and Health & Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan inaugurated and flagged off India’s first I-Lab (Infectious disease diagnostic lab) for Covid testing in rural and inaccessible areas of India.
• Expressing his happiness to launch the I-Lab, an infectious disease diagnostic laboratory- a mobile testing facility, Dr Harsh Vardhan dedicated this facility to providing Covid testing access to rural India.
• This mobile testing facility will be deployed through the DBT testing hubs to remote regions of the country for Covid testing.
• DBT is scaling-up testing for Covid by reorienting premiere laboratories as Covid testing centres in a hub and spoke model.
• There are now over 20 hubs in the country with 100 testing laboratories and these have tested more than 2,60,000 samples.
• This has been possible through the DBT-AMTZ COVID Command Consortia (COVID Medtech Manufacturing Development] Consortia) to cope up with the current situation in the country and move progressively towards a stage of self-sufficiency.
• The I-lab will be deployed through these hubs into remote and interior place.
• Today there are 953 testing laboratories in all corners of the country.
• Dr. Renu Swarup said on the occasion that through the concerted efforts of Indian scientists, the country has achieved a capacity of producing nearly 5 lakh testing kits per day, exceeding the target of having one lakh test kits by May 31, 2020.
• She pointed out that this I-Lab has been created in a record time of 8 days by the Andhra Pradesh Med-tech Zone team with the support of DBT under the National Biopharma Mission being implemented by the Public Sector BIRAC.
• She highlighted that the unit has a biosafety facility and is capable of performing RT-PCR as well as ELISA tests.

DBT-AMTZ COMManD

• The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science & Technology along with Andhra Pradesh Med-tech Zone (AMTZ) has initiated the DBT-AMTZ COMManD [COVID Medtech Manufacturing Development] Consortia to address the shortage of critical healthcare technologies in India and move progressively towards a stage of self-sufficiency.
• Under this Consortia, India’s first I- lab (infectious disease diagnostic lab) has been built at AMTZ in a record time of 8 days from the date of receipt of the Automotive Chassis, from Bharat Benz.
• This is a mobile diagnostic unit with a biosafety facility.
• The I- lab is a BSL-2 facility with on-site ELISA, RT-PCR, Biochemistry analysers.
• It can run 50 RT-PCR reactions and about 200 ELISA in a day.
• Double set of Machines can help increase the capacity to about 500 per day in 8 hours shift
• It can be deployed in remote areas and can be lifted from Automotive Chassis and can be put on goods train for sending to any location in the country.
• The BSL -2 Lab is as per NABL specifications and is being attached to DBT’s certified Testing centres.

• AMTZ is Asia's first medical equipment manufacturing ecosystem, uniquely dedicated for Medtech and supported by various Ministries.

INFECTIOUS DISEASE DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY (I-LAB)

• To promote last mile access of testing to rural India, DBT under the Covid-Command strategy has supported the building of mobile testing labs through AMTZ.
• The unique feature of these mobile testing labs is their utility in diagnosing other infectious diseases beyond the Covid period

Specifications

• Automotive Chassis, Diagnostic Equipment, Clean Room, BSL-2 lab, bio-safety cabinets
• 25 Tests (RT-PCR) per I-Lab per Day
• 300 ELISA tests/day
• Additional tests for other diseases for TB, HIV etc. are to be costed as per CGHS rates.