LAHORE: Al-Khidmat Foundation, the charity wing of religious-politico party Jamaat-e-Islami, opened a COVID-19 testing laboratory in Lahore on Saturday, the first such facility to be established by any political party.

“Al-Khidmat has a medical setup of 28 hospitals, ambulances and diagnostic centers across the country. Now a special COVID-19 center has been established in Lahore to facilitate those who are unable to pay the fees at private medical centers. All our hospitals, ambulances and other facilities are available to every Pakistani in this testing time,” Muhammad Abdul Shakoor, president of Al-Khidmat Foundation, told Arab News on Monday.

While at private testing centers, the cost of undergoing a COVID-19 test is about Rs9,000 ($56), the Al-Khidmat lab charges Rs3,000, according to the group’s media manager Shoaib Hashmi.

“We are charging only the cost of the test, even less than that,” he said, “Results are available within 48 hours.”

The Al-Khidmat COVID-19 laboratory can conduct 100 tests a day, with testing kits purchased from international health care companies Roche and Qiagen.

The lab was designed by Pakistani experts and its equipment comes from the local market.

“The Al-Khidmat COVID-19 lab is a great facility for the people of Pakistan amid the coronavirus outbreak. We must appreciate the organization for providing quality tests at low rates. The kits used by the facility are of good quality,” Dr. Javed Akram, vice chancellor of the University of Health Sciences (UHS) in Lahore, told Arab News.

Al-Khidmat plans to establish similar facilities in Karachi, Faisalabad and Peshawar.

“Work on the Karachi lab is almost complete, and it will start working in 15 days. The Faisalabad and Peshawar labs will open in about six weeks,” Hashmi said.