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✅ Completed COVID-19 Response

A rapid PCR system for Sri Lanka's national COVID-19 testing lab

📍 Medical Research Institute, Borella, Colombo, Sri Lanka

✅ Project Value: $167,072 — Reached

A Rotary Global Grant funds Sri Lanka's first automated rapid PCR system, cutting COVID-19 test turnaround at the Medical Research Institute from six hours to two.

As COVID-19 spread through Sri Lanka in early 2020, nearly every urgent diagnostic sample in the country converged on one place: the Medical Research Institute (MRI) in Borella, Colombo, the Ministry of Health's central testing laboratory. Its manual PCR process could take up to six hours to produce results for even a small batch of samples — a bottleneck that, as case numbers grew, threatened to slow the entire national response.

District 3220 mobilises

Rotary's response was coordinated through a dedicated COVID-19 Action Group formed by Rotary District 3220, chaired by Past Rotary International President K R Ravindran and made up of more than a dozen district leaders and Rotarians. Working alongside MRI's own microbiologists, virologists and laboratory technicians, the group identified the single change that would do the most good: automation.

What the grant delivered

Global Grant GG2001273, hosted by the Rotary Club of Colombo West and sponsored internationally by the Rotary Club of Pine Rivers Daybreak (District 9600), funded a Rapid PCR closed-system automation platform — the AltoStar® Automation System AM16 — not previously installed anywhere in Sri Lanka. The closed system also reduces manual handling of infectious samples, adding a layer of protection for laboratory staff.

The full US$167,072 project was underwritten by District Designated Funds from eleven Rotary districts spanning Australia, Sri Lanka and Japan, alongside a substantial cash contribution from District 3220 itself.

Built for scale, not just speed

Tripling testing throughput does more than shorten a queue. Faster turnaround means faster isolation of positive cases, faster contact tracing, and less time for the virus to spread while patients wait for results. The Medical Research Institute now has the ongoing capacity to operate and maintain the system as part of its core testing infrastructure.