While women employees serving at government offices across the country celebrated the International Women's Day on Sunday, Smirti Shrestha and Suni Dongol, technicians at the National Public Health Laboratory, were examining specimens— nasal and throat swabs of suspected coronavirus patients.

As the laboratory, under the Department of Health Services, has faced a shortage of technical staff including lab technicians for a long time, Shrestha and Dongol were asked to come to office on Sunday as well.

"The previous day too they had stayed in office until 10 pm," Dr Runa Jha, director at the laboratory, told the Post. "Even on International Women's Day, we could not allow them to take leave."

Shrestha and Dongol were among the five lab technicians, trained to carry out a test of the specimens of suspected coronavirus patients, and they have been carrying out their duties around the clock.

According to Jha, the laboratory is not in a position to examine a large number of specimens all at once, given their limited human resource and the lab's grossly inadequate capacity in case there is an outbreak of the disease in the country.

"For that, we have to scale up our laboratory, train additional manpower and probably halt other services and focus on coronavirus tests," she added. "We have drawn the attention of the concerned officials at the Ministry of Health and Population."

Apart from human resource, the laboratory also lacked enough testing kits and viral transport medium (a box used to transport samples) to handle a possible outbreak of the new strain of coronavirus, dubbed Covid-19 and later SARS-CoV-2.

While China has managed to slow down its spread, the virus has spread to at least 103 countries across the globe including South Korea, Japan, and in the Middle East, where a large number of Nepalis have been serving. This has alarmed health experts.

Nepal so far has reported only one case, but health experts warn it is only a matter of time before the country sees an outbreak, as the government agencies have not taken the issue seriously.

"We are quite aware that the existing National Public Health Laboratory cannot carry out all the tests, in case of a large-scale outbreak in the country," Mahendra Prasad Shrestha, director general at the Department of Health Services, told the Post. "We have been working on expanding its capacity and weighing other options too."

Specimens of hundreds of people who come in close contact with the infected people need to be examined, which is impossible, given the existing capacity and staff strength of the laboratory. The laboratory has kits enough for only around 1,300 cases.

Shrestha said concerns were raised during a high-level meeting at the Ministry of Health and Population a few days ago, with the officials agreeing to expand the capacity of the laboratory and step up measures, and assuring budgetary support and other help, for the same.

Concerns were also raised about the existing surveillance and risk education, rapid response team, command and coordination, risk communication, point of entry, infection prevention and logistics management, at the meeting.

The Health Ministry also lacks sufficient surveillance and rapid response teams to respond to possible outbreaks.

"Health workers alone cannot carry out surveillance and respond to the outbreak immediately," Shrestha added. "For that, the help of the whole state machinery— army, police and others—is needed."

The government has made a command and coordination mechanism under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Ishwar Pokhrel. It comprises 10 ministers, including Minister for Health and Population Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal.

So far, the deadly virus has killed at least 3,648 persons and infected 106,695, including men, women and children.