Patna, June 22: Questions are being raised on the efficacy of the microbiology laboratory at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) even as blood samples of children suffering from the mysterious viral disease at Muzaffarpur district are being sent to National Institute of Virology, Pune for testing.

The state government’s promise to set up a ultra-modern virology laboratory at the centre has been biting the dust for last several years because of which many diseases cannot be diagnosed here and the state has to depend on labs in other cities at the time of crisis.

Sources at the lab said though it was equipped to diagnose Japanese encephalitis, the samples were not sent here as experts believed that it would have been difficult to find out the exact disease in case it was not Japanese encephalitis. “We diagnose Japanese encephalitis all round the year but this time, when over 70 children are suspected to be suffering from a mysterious viral disease, the samples have not been sent to us. It is probably because we would have to send samples to the Pune laboratory if it were some other disease. We are not in a position to detect all kind of viral diseases as we cannot carry out virus culture over here, which is a very advanced and accurate method to detect various viral diseases,” said Dr Vijay Kumar, a virologist at the lab.

According to sources in the health department, PMCH was slated to have the first virology laboratory in eastern India at an estimated cost of Rs 3 crore. Senior doctors at the hospital said that the plan to upgrade the present microbiology department into a modern testing lab was approved by the state government around two years back and the process of expanding the infrastructure and bringing in new equipment should have been completed by now, but the plan like many others, still remains only on paper.

“The government is keen to start the work but the process has to be expedited. If the full-fledged virology lab had been ready, we would have been able to detect the disease within 24 hours and there would have been no need to send the samples to places like Pune and Delhi for diagnosis,” Kumar elaborated.

Sources said once the upgrade is complete, the virology lab would have modern and advanced testing facilities for all major diseases such as HIV-I & II, Hepatitis (A, B, C, D), dengue, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis, swine flu influenza, polio and other diseases.