• Union Minister for Science & Technology Dr. Harsh Vardhan inaugurated and flagged off India’s first Infectious disease diagnostic lab (I-Lab) for COVID-19 testing in rural and inaccessible areas of India.

I-Lab:

• The infectious disease diagnostic laboratory is a mobile testing facility that was dedicated to providing COVID-19 testing access to rural India. 
• India’s first I-lab has been built at AMTZ in the record time of 8 days from the date of receipt of Automotive Chassis, from Bharat Benz.
• This mobile testing facility will be deployed through the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) testing hubs to remote regions of the country for COVID-19 testing. 
• The I-lab is a BSL-2 facility with on-site ELISA, RT-PCR, Biochemistry analyzers.
• 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.
• The BSL-2 Lab is as per NABL specifications and is being attached to DBT’s certified Testing centres.
• The I-lab will be deployed through the DBT-AMTZ COMManD [COVID Medtech Manufacturing Development] Consortia. DBT-AMTZ COMManD aims to address the shortage of critical healthcare technologies in India and move progressively towards a stage of self-sufficiency.
• Around 20 hubs with 100 testing laboratories are there in India. These have tested more than 2,60,000 samples.