A first of its kind in India, the Walk-in Sample Collection (WISC) kiosk was designed by a team under Dr Ganesh Mohan, RMO of Kalamassery Medical College.
Kochi: As part of facilitating COVID-19 testing in Kerala, the Ernakulam government medical college has developed Walk-in sample kiosk (WISK), the first of its kind in the country.
The facility will help in an easy and safe collection of samples. It takes less than two minutes to collect the blood and swab samples in the kiosk, which looks like a cabin.
A first of its kind in India, the WISK was designed by a team under Dr. Ganesh Mohan, RMO of Kalamassery Medical College.
Launching the WISK on Monday, District Collector S Suhas said that similar technology was used in South Korea for mass sample collection. It takes less than two minutes for blood and swab sample collection.
“This will help us collect samples from a large number of people. There is no direct contact between the health worker and the person being tested while collecting the samples. It takes nearly Rs 40000 to set up a WISK,” he said.
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The Ernakulam district authorities, in conjunction with the state health department, Monday unveiled a ‘walk-in sample kiosk’ (WISK) model through which health workers can take swab or blood samples from a potentially-positive person within two minutes. This is the first time such a model is being implemented in the country.
The advantage of the WISK model is that health workers don’t have to wear fast-expendable protective personal equipment (PPE) while drawing samples. This not only releases a huge fiscal pressure on health authorities in terms of procuring PPE kits but also helps health workers collect samples at the local level rather than doing the same at a hospital.
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