These labs on wheels rush to people to speed up coronavirus testing

The mobile labs enable a significant reduction in turnaround time from 2-10 days to 4-12 hours for confirmatory test of Covid-19, and provide the highest levels of safety for health workers

If you ever get stuck at a traffic signal in Bengaluru suburbs and see a fellow commuter wearing personal protective equipment and driving a white and blue van, don’t mistake it to be just any other emergency vehicle. Chances are that it is one of the Mobile Infection Testing and Reporting (MITR) Labs on its way to perform Covid-19 testing. 

The mobile lab is India’s first and only Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-approved biosafety level (BSL-2+)-compliant mobile diagnostic lab for end-to-end RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, a laboratory test technique) based Covid-19 testing.

These mobile labs have been