The Govt has identified 14 centres of excellence such as PGIMER in Chandigarh, AIIMS in New Delhi, NIMHANS in Bangalore to mentor all govt and private medical colleges in their catchment areas to create state-of-art molecular virology set-ups.
The ICMR ( Indian Council of Medical Research ) has already invited applications from all govt and private medical institutions for establishing COVID-19 testing facility.
“As per directives of Union Ministers of Home and Health, under a core team of Director, AIIMS and Director General of ICMR, a total of 14 centres of excellence have been designated,” the ICMR said.
ICMR Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said, “This work will involve significant due diligence, interaction with various medical colleges, training and hand-holding. Therefore, we have decided to distribute the responsibility evenly across various institutions of eminence all across the country.”