Three new facilities to help govt ramp up coronavirus testing
1 min read . Updated: 27 Jul 2020, 06:27 AM IST
PremiumThe test centres will reduce turn-around time and limit the exposure of lab technicians to infectious clinical material
NEW DELHI : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch high-throughput covid-19 testing facilities on Monday via video conferencing to ramp up testing in view of the rapid rise in new infections. On Sunday, India breached the 1.4 million covid-19 cases mark.
The facilities will help increase testing capacity and allow early detection and treatment, and also assist in controlling the spread of covid, the PMO said in a statement.
The three high-throughput testing facilities, with the capacity to test more than 10,000 samples, each, per day, have been established strategically—at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research, Noida; ICMR-National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health, Mumbai; and ICMR-National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Kolkata.
The facilities will reduce the turnaround time and limit the exposure of lab technicians to infectious clinical material, the government said.
The labs can also test diseases other than covid-19, and after the pandemic, will be able to test for Hepatitis B and C, HIV, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Cytomegalovirus, Chlamydia, Neisseria and Dengue.
India has been focusing on improving its testing rates. For the first time, it ran tests on 442,263 samples in the past 24 hours, with the number of tests per million further improving to 11,805. So far, 16,291,331 samples have been tested, said the health ministry. Besides, for the first time, government labs have set a record by performing 362,153 tests. Private facilities also scaled a new high with 79,878 tests in one day.
While the number of covid-19 cases and deaths continue to rise, India is recording an impressive recovery rate.
As least 36,145 covid-19 patients were discharged in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 902,367, with a recovery rate of 63.92%.
“It means more patients are recovering, thus maintaining the steadily widening difference between recovered and active covid-19 patients. This gap has crossed 400,000 and currently stands at 417,694. Recovered cases are 1.89 times the active cases," the health ministry said in a statement.
The government has also advised all states and UTs to keep up with, and implement the ‘Test, Track, Treat’ strategy.
