Union Health Minister Launches DBT–AMTZ Mobile Diagnostic Unit For COVID-19 Testing- I-Lab
- Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan inaugurated India’s first I-Lab (Infectious disease diagnostic lab) for COVID-19 testing in rural and inaccessible areas of India.
- Expressing his happiness to launch the I-Lab, infectious disease diagnostic laboratory- a mobile testing facility, Dr. Harsh Vardhan dedicated this facility to provide COVID-19 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-19 testing.
- He added that DBT coordinated in scaling-up testing for COVID-19 by reorienting premiere laboratories as COVID-19 testing centers 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.
- Secretary, Department of Biotechnology Dr. Renu Swarup and other officials were present on the occasion. Dr. Jitendar Sharma, CEO, Andhra Med Tech Zone CEO, and senior officials from NITI Ayog, Union health ministry, MeiTY, other ministries, ICMR, DST, CSIR etc joined the function through web online.
- Vardhan added, “This has been possible through the DBT-AMTZ COVID-19 Command Consortia (COVID-19 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 places.”
- The Minister appreciated the “Andhra med-tech zone team for building this unique, innovative facility for the country at the period of lock-down through tireless, dedicated and committed efforts”.
- He informed that AMTZ through the support of DBT has also established manufacturing facility for indigenous manufacturing of kits and reagents for various testing kits which were initially imported thereby helping us realise the vision of Pradhan Mantriji on- Make-in India, Make for India”.
- He pointed out that there are 953 testing laboratories in all corners of the country and elaborated on “Various steps taken by the ministry and departments towards achieving research components indigenization and their in-house manufacturing.”
- Vardhan emphasised that “In the near future with all these collective and cooperative efforts, India will achieve self-sufficiency in healthcare technologies leading towards Atma Nirbhar Bharat.”
- The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology along with Andhra Pradesh Med-tech Zone (AMTZ) has initiated the DBT-AMTZ COMManD [COVID-19 Medtech Manufacturing Development] Consortia to address the shortage of critical healthcare technologies in India and move progressively towards a stage of self-sufficiency.
About DBT-
The Department of Biotechnology is an Indian government department, under the Ministry of Science and Technology responsible for administrating development and commercialisation in the field of modern biology and biotechnology in India.
- Founded – 1986
- Headquarters – New Delhi
- Secretary– Renu Swarup
About AMTZ-
Andhra Pradesh MedTech Zone Limited (popularly known as AMTZ) is an enterprise under the Government of Andhra Pradesh, a 270 Acre zone, dedicated for Medical Device Manufacturing. The objective behind this ‘One-Stop- Solution’ is not only to reduce the cost of manufacturing up to 40% or to just simplify the end-to- end operations but also to reduce the import dependency, which is presently around 75%. AMTZ envisions to put India on the global map of high end medical equipment production and make health care products affordable and accessible not only for India but for world at large.
- Founded – 30 April 2016
- Headquarters –Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
- Chief Executive Officer (CEO)- Dr. Jitendar Sharma
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