Chandigarh, March 27 -- The Haryana health department has approved the establishment of an HIV viral load testing laboratory at Civil Hospital, Panchkula. With this, Haryana will have its second such facility, the first being located in Rohtak. An HIV viral load testing lab measures the amount of actively replicating HIV-1 RNA (genetic material) in a patient's plasma using molecular techniques like PCR.

Additional chief secretary (ACS), health, Sumita Misra said the laboratory has been approved at an annual cost of Rs.1.65 crore, based on an estimated workload of approximately 15,000 HIV viral load tests per year.

The ACS said that the new laboratory will be set up by utilising the existing Covid-19 molecular testing infrastructure alre...