Covid-19 tests in India to soon touch 1 crore mark: Dr Harsh Vardhan

National

The total number of people tested for COVID-19 in the country will soon touch one crore mark as Centre removed all bottlenecks and took steps to pave way for enhanced testing, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) said. The ministry said that the diagnostic testing network is expanding very fast and there are now 1065 testing labs in the country. A release by MoHFW read that the total number of people being tested for COVID-19 tests in the country will soon touch one crore. This has been possible due to the removal of all bottlenecks by Government of India. Various steps taken by the Central Government have paved the way for enhanced testing for COVID-19.

It read that as on date, 90,56,173 tests have been conducted through a diagnostic testing network which is fast expanding. There are now 1065 testing labs in the country comprising 768 in the public sector and 297 private labs. The per day testing capacity is also fast growing. Yesterday, as many as 2,29,588 people got tested for COVID-19,” it read. India’s COVID-19 tally breached the 6 lakh cases mark today with 19,148 new coronavirus cases being reported in the last 24 hours, as per the data by the MoHFW.

The total cases now stand at 604,641 of which there are 226,947 active cases while 359,860 patients have been cured/discharged/migrated. Around 434 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours taking the number of COVID-19 deaths in the country to 17,834. The Union Health Ministry said that the Centre announced a significant step and COVID-19 testing can now be done on the prescription of any registered practitioner, and not exclusively a government doctor.

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The health ministry said that through a far-reaching move Indian Council of Medical Research has strongly recommended that laboratories should be free to test any individual in accordance to the ICMR guidelines and State authorities must not restrict an individual from getting tested, as early testing will help in containing the virus and saving lives. The Government of India has urged States to ramp up testing in a big way by using Rapid Antigen Point-of-Care tests in addition to RT-PCR, which is the gold standard for diagnosis of COVlD-19.

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