Laboratory Services (LS)
Universal and routine access to quality assured HIV related laboratory services are made available through the activities of Laboratory Services Division. Now work related to laboratory services are not confined to HIV testing only, but are overarching and have an impact on other interventions included under prevention, care, support and treatment, STI management, blood safety, procurement and supply chain management. Emphasis on quality assured laboratory service delivery is important for success of NACP.
To ensure quality of HIV testing under the NACP, GSACS has an External Quality Assessment Programme administered to 5 HIV testing laboratories named as State Reference Laboratories (SRLs) in the state. They are established at B. J. Medical College-Ahmedabad, NHL Municipal Medical College-Ahmedabad, MP Shah Medical College-Jamnagar, Government medical College-Surat and Government Medical College-Vadodara. One Technical Officer (TO) and one Laboratory Technician (LT) at each SRL is supported by funds from NACO to facilitate supervision, training and continual quality improvement in all SRLs and linked ICTCs.
All the 5 SRLs are NABL accredited and linked to National AIDS Research Institute, Pune (NRL).
Activities of SRL include:
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To supervise and monitor the laboratory technicians for quality testing
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To participate in the external quality assessment scheme under NACP
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To undertake proficiency testing (PT) on the panel provided to them twice a year as per the EQAS calendar. To send the report of the PT panel within 1 week of receipt to the concerned NRL. To test and re- aliquot the PT panel (4 members) to be sent to ICTC
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To follow up by bi-annual workshops (1-2 day duration as required) regarding errors in PT or inter laboratory discordance with concerned technicians.
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To retest 20% positive and 5% negative samples received from ICTCs (of specimens received by ICTCs in the first 7 days of January, April, July and October).
NACO is scaling up viral load testing for strengthening and expansion of the molecular diagnostic capacity. For this, NACO is setting up Viral Load Laboratories (VLL) across the country, among these 4 Viral Load Laboratory are established in the state at GMERS Medical College, Sola, Ahmedabad, GMERS Medical College, Gandhinagar, M. P. Shah Medical College, Jamnagar and Government Medical College, Surat.
