The University of Health Sciences on Wednesday formed a six-member committee for diagnosis of coronavirus that has spread from Chinese city of Wuhan and has claimed lives of 132 people with 6,057 confirmed infections so far.
The team will conduct RT-PCR (Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) for suspected patients for the detection of coronavirus. Prof Javed Akram told the media that the result of the test could be determined within just two days.
Earlier, various samples were sent to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Islamabad for the same test. RT-PCR is a laboratory technique combining reverse transcription of RNA into DNA (in this context called complementary DNA or cDNA) and amplification of specific DNA targets using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It is primarily used to measure the amount of a specific RNA.
UHS sets up lab for coronavirus
