A new lab for testing Covid-19 will come up in Nadia soon : Mahua Moitra

“A high percentage of migrants returning to their homes are reportedly having infection of coronavirus – the fact we are considering. So, keeping it in mind, we appeal that every individual migrant should go to a quarantine center or school at first before reaching home. As they are mostly asymptomatic, they should not meet anyone in the locality before being quarantined for 14 days”, Mahua Moitra said.

Biswabrata Goswami

KRISHNAGAR, 3 JUNE: As migrants returning home continued to test positive for the novel coronavirus, the Trinamul Congress MP Mahua Moitra, today, informed that the state government is going to set up a laboratory at Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial hospital (JNM) in Kalyani for Covid-19 tests.

“The state health department has already issued a tender bid for purchasing required machineries and equipment. I hope these will come within three or four days and thereafter the hospital will start testing swab samples. Whenever this facility will come up, the number of sample tests will increase,” said Ms Moitra.

She said a laboratory for testing Covid-19 samples was to start functioning at JNM with the help of Kalyani university from 1 June, but due to some problems, the facility will come up on 6 or 7 June.

Ms Moitra, who conducted a press meet at Krishnagar municipality conference room today, said this service was necessitated as thousands of migrants from different states are returning almost every day and a considerable number of migrants are supposedly bearing infections.

“A high percentage of migrants returning to their homes are reportedly having infection of coronavirus – the fact we are considering. So, keeping it in mind, we appeal that every individual migrant should go to a quarantine center or school at first before reaching home. As they are mostly asymptomatic, they should not meet anyone in the locality before being quarantined for 14 days”, she said.

In the government quarantine centers, the administration provides food and water to all quarantined persons while in other quarantine centers like schools, the family members are providing food to their nearest ones, she added.

At few centers, some problems have been reported on silly matters. But, the district administration is trying its best to contain the situation. I can say, no one is starving in quarantine centers, Ms Moitra said.