AT Photo
Agartala, Dec 8: The Health Department of Tripura will soon conduct a scientific survey on the indigenous food items to ascertain whether these widely consumed dishes are hygienic or not.
A senior official of the department of microbiology at GBP hospital said that the main referral laboratory situated at the hospital has been assigned with the task to keep a track on the outbreaks of food borne pathogens.
“Whenever an outbreak occurs where people fall ill apparently due to food intake, a dedicated team of our department reaches the spot and collect the sample of the food. So far, we have conducted tests on samples collected from four places where such outbreaks are reported. We are also ready to kick start our new program under which samples of indigenous food items will be collected from different parts of the state and subjected to scientific tests. The main objective of this project is to ascertain the safety and hygiene standards of these dishes”, said Dr Tapan Majumder the head of Microbiology department in GBP hospital and Agartala Government Medical College.
According to Majumder, the laboratory in GBP hospital has all the necessary instruments to conduct different kinds of tests related to infection caused by different micro-organisms.
“Every day we receive 1,500 samples for different tests. We have different departments of the scientific experiments. Some tests are still not available here because of the non-availability of reagents. Some reagents are very costly which is why the Government of India regulates its use by the laboratories. In such cases, we rely on our chain laboratories like NIV Pune, NICED Kolkata etc.”, he said.
Majumder said that 90 percent of the tests related to various infectious diseases are possible in Tripura and the laboratory of GBP hospital is also helping the Assam Government. “Their laboratory is getting ready. Samples from a portion of Assam come here for tests,” he added.