A district in eastern Nepal funds its own PCR laboratory
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- Health
In the first months of the pandemic, testing in Nepal meant sending samples to Kathmandu and waiting. Jhapa, in the far east of the country, decided not to wait.
Several hundred local members raised almost $100,000 in a short period to build a PCR laboratory, and then donated it to the government of Nepal so that the facility would be public and free at the point of use. Mission Rebuild Nepal joined as a contributor; the local outlet Jhapa Today reported its pledge at two lakh rupees.
The organisation's own comment on the project was mostly about who did the work. It described its part as an opportunity to participate, and put the credit on the leadership the local communities had taken.
The laboratory was designed to outlast the emergency that prompted it. The same equipment handles other virus-borne diseases, which in a district on the Indian border with a large seasonal population is not a hypothetical benefit.
