New Delhi: Indian Council of Medical Research [ICMR], has said that India has increased daily testing for Covid-19 and achieved a milestone of conducting 10 lakhs testing per day. In the last 24 hours, India has conducted 10,23,836 sample testing, which was achieved because of ramped up COVID-19 specific diagnostic labs across India with active support of Central and State/UT governments.
Dr. Balram Bhargava, Director General, ICMR said, “In a diverse country like India, for equitable access to testing, optimization of resources based on the evolving epidemic was an essential part of the sustainable scaling up. Due to the concerted, focused and collaborative efforts of the Centre, State/UT government along with dedicated support of lakhs of front-line workers we have ensured the successful implementation of TESTING aggressively, TRACKING comprehensively & TREATING efficiently which has enabled us to rapidly increase the number of tests done per day’’.
Record number of per day testing has been achieved by evaluating and validating laboratories for COVID-19 testing across India. Starting with one single laboratory at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune, Maharashtra, as on 21st August 2020 the total number covid-19 specific testing laboratories count has reached 1511. Of which dedicated government laboratories are 983 and private laboratories number stands at 528.
India has been conducting an average 8, 89,935 testing in the last 5 days. With a record number of testing per day, India has tested 3, 44, 91,073 samples across the country till 21st August 2020. Not only this, India has been testing around 74.7 people per lakh population, much higher than WHO’s guidelines of testing 14 people per lakh population.
Ramping up of testing facility across India was at the core of increasing testing per day. Through our ardent efforts, it was ensured that a specific testing platform are made available addressing general testing (RT-PCR), High-throughput testing (COBAS), testing at remotest places and PHCs (TrueNAT, CBNAAT), in containment areas (rapid antigen testing) and for large number & migrant population testing (pooled sample testing).
ICMR has established COVID-19 testing labs even in the remotest parts of the country. These include areas where it is difficult to travel. For example, ICMR has established COVID-19 testing lab at an altitude of 18 thousand feet in Leh, Ladakh. Apart from this, the scope of testing has been expanded by setting up a lab at Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar. The ultimate goal is that testing should be available to everyone in need and no one should be left behind.
