Ongoing Covid-19 Testings

The DUKE – Ruhuna collaborative research centre has helped in facilitating the COVID- 19 RT PCR testing through the Department  of Microbiology  at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ruhuna. Currently, the testing has been done in the  Galle, Matara, and Hambantota districts. To date, 1630 tests have been carried out and out of that 175 positive samples were identified. Among them, most of the positive samples were identified from the OPD Surveillance samples from the Matara district and from the COVID special treatment unit from the Hambantota district as well.  The maximum number of samples which can be tested per day is around 30 and the management is planning to further increase the maximum number of samples which can be tested for a day.  Currently, the Laboratory Research Coordinator of the DUKE- Ruhuna Research centre together with the medical laboratory technicians in the Department of Microbiology are carrying out the testing process. Mainly the testing procedure starts by extracting RNA from the samples which were stored in the Viral transport Media. The Spinster viral nucleus acid kit and the Biospin viral DNA/ENA extraction kits were used as the extraction kits for the purpose. Later on, the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus Real-Time PCR kit was used to perform the RT PCR process for the extracted samples. Two Magnetic Induction Cycler (MIC) PCR  machines which were donated by the DUKE university, USA are being used for the detection of the results.