AGRA: After clearance from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the state government launched pool testing of the samples of suspected coronavirus infected people in Agra, where the maximum number of cases have been detected in UP.While the state is the first in the country to adopt the technique, the method is being successfully used in Israel and Germany.Chief medical officer of Agra district, Dr Mukesh Kumar Vats, said, “The method involves mixing of several samples to create a large or super sample and putting them up for test in one go instead of testing every single sample one at a time. If the result is negative, then all persons in the group will be declared negative to coronavirus. But if the sample tests positive, every single person in the batch will be tested separately. It will save much time and effort.”On Tuesday, a joint team of the district hospital and SN Medical College collected 100 samples in Fatehpur Sikri block, where 14 Covid-19 positive cases had surfaced on Monday.District magistrate Prabhu N Singh said, “Each day, samples of at least 100 people will be taken for pool testing. Out of these, 20 super samples comprising swabs of five people in a batch will be tested by the health department team. They will be sent in a special triple layer packing to King George's Medical University in Lucknow for testing.“The method will speed up testing which is crucial to contain coronavirus pandemic,” the DM said.The pool testing technique is not new. It was widely used in the US to screen patients of syphilis during the Second World War.