K'taka opts for PPP route to set up Covid testing labs

Bengaluru, Oct 2 (IANS) In a bid to increase Covid-19 testing to 1.5 lakh tests per day, Karnataka Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar said on Friday that the state government has decided to set up Covid-19 testing labs in public private partnership (PPP) mode soon in order to triple the number of testing from the present rate.Speaking to reporters after inaugurating the new Covid-19 testing lab set up by Eurofins Clinical Genetics India (ECGI) here, Sudhakar said the government is finalising the tender process and hopes to complete it in a week's time.The minister asserted that this is being done following the direction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "He (Modi) wants us to triple our tests to fight the Covid better. We will be floating tenders to set up RT-PCR machines within two weeks," he said, adding that 144 labs have already been inaugurated in a matter of six months.Sudhakar said that though positive cases are on the rise in the state, the mortality rate is under control at 1.52 per cent.
--IANS nbh/arm