Process of Specimen Receipt at the NTEP Laboratory

There is a specific procedure prescribed under the National TB Elimination Program (NTEP) during receipt of the specimen for NTEP Laboratory.

At the laboratory, all specimens need to be received in the registration area.

To minimize the risk of infection, the following procedures should be applied:

1. The specimen box received needs to be opened only in a biosafety cabinet inside the laboratory. (Do not open on an open bench at the lab reception). 
2. Before opening the package, one should inspect the delivery box for signs of breakage or leakage; if there is gross leakage evident, one needs to discard the package following biomedical waste management.
3. If on gross inspection there is no leakage, one needs to proceed with opening the sample.
4. One needs to open the package carefully and re-check for any leakage. In case of leakage, again it should be discarded (the entire contents) following biosafety precautions. The laboratory needs to inform about rejection/ leakage of samples to the respective District TB Officers immediately to enable re-collection of specimens.
5. Laboratory needs to check the labelling of specimens in the specimen container and the test request form.
6. It should register the samples in Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) and proceed for processing by the appropriate method.
7. Each laboratory needs to document the date of the receipt of the specimen, patient name, age, sex and address, the name of the referring health centre, the reason for testing and volume of the specimen in the Culture & Drug Susceptibility Testing lab register.

Resources

• Guidelines for Programmatic Management of Drug Resistant TB in India, 2021.

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