Kochi: Ernakulum district administration introduced on Monday the Korean-style Walk-in-Sample Kiosk( WISK) in its attempts to help health caregivers tide over the scarcity of personal protective equipment( PPE).
The facility has more to it, for it takes no more than just two minutes to collect samples.
Two sample collection cabins installed at the Government Medical College in Ernakulam are first of its kind in India, in the same vein of Korean WISKs whose large scale use made news.
The glass cabin facility, where medical staff place themselves in, is always sterile and help safely collect throat swabs of the people standing outside.
Standing inside, the medical staff collects swabs from people sitting outside using the gloves affixed on the kiosk.
Aside from gloves, WISK comes with magnetic doors, ultraviolet lights and an exhaust fan.
The person waits in a chair outside the cabin holding the container to collect the swab.
After collecting swab using the gloves, the medical staff standing on the inside returns the container to the person, who in turn will hand it over to a medical staff.
WISK is cheaper and easier way to collect samples,” say health officials.
WISK is an effective way to overcome the use of PPE which is both cumbersome and costly. Where WISKS costs Rs 40,000 per installation, PPE cost Rs 1000 apiece.
Ernakulum Medical College RMO Dr. Ganesh Mohan, Additional District medical officer and Control Room nodal officer Dr. VIvek Kumar and Dr. Nikilesh Menon are among those developed the facility.