Kargil gets first RT-PCR lab, Ladakh records 28 fresh COVID-19 cases

With 28 fresh cases, the COVID-19 tally of the Union Territory of Ladakh has shot up to 5,840, an official bulletin said on Saturday.

Ladakh has so far recorded 68 deaths due to COVID-19, while the number of cured patients has gone up to 4,984 with 82 people being discharged from various hospitals in the last 24 hours, the bulletin released by the Directorate of Health Services said.

Of the new cases, 18 were reported from Leh district and 10 from Kargil district.

The bulletin said 72 patients were discharged in Leh and 10 in Kargil, bringing down the number of active COVID-19 cases in the Union Territory to 788 -- 650 in Leh and 138 in Kargil.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Governor (LG) Radha Krishna Mathur inaugurated a newly-established RT-PCR laboratory at a hospital designated for treating COVID-19 patients at Kurbathang in Kargil district on Friday.

The laboratory, with a fully automatic Biorad RTPCR machine and an RNA extractor machine, has the capacity to test 96 samples at one go, an official spokesperson said, adding that with three runs every 24 hours, it can conduct 288 tests.

The LG went round different sections of the laboratory, including the storage section, the sample-processing room and the RNA extraction room, and expressed satisfaction on the testing facilities there, the spokesperson said.

"This is one of the highly sophisticated laboratories in the country with biosafety level two, which is presently available only in a few districts in the country, and with the coming up of this laboratory, test facilities and results will now be available to people in a hassle-free manner," the LG said.