India ramps up testing infra, 420,000 tested in single day

nNEWDELHI:ABOUT 420,000 Covid-19 tests were conducted in India in a day, officials said on Saturday, nearly double the daily testing capacity of 220,000 at the beginning of the month.

As many as 16 million tests have been conducted in India until now, according to the Union health ministry’s data. Last week, about 350,000 samples were tested daily on average.

With the third-highest Covid-19 cases globally, the increased testing has taken India’s tests per million to 11,485, according to the data. This is much lower compared to the US (158,981 tests per million) and just about half of Brazil’s 23,094. The US and Brazil are the two worst-hit countries by the pandemic.

India had one Covid-19 testing lab in January – Pune’s National Institute of Virology. The number has now gone up to 1,301 labs. Of these, 902 are government and 399 private labs.

The Centre has advised the states and Union territories to keep up the “test, track and treat” strategy. “Aggressive testing may lead to a higher number of

daily positive cases initially but would eventually achieve a decline as has been demonstrated after Union Government’s targeted efforts in the NCT [National Capital Territory] of Delhi,” a government press release said.

The number of daily cases in Delhi went up to nearly 4,000 in June after the government scaled up testing with rapid antigen kits.

Dr Puneet Misra, a community medicine professor at New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, said increased testing will also help keep the mortality low. “If cases are detected

early, they can receive requisite treatment early. This also helps doctors in monitoring patients who might be at a higher risk of death such as the old, those with compromised immune systems, those who might have diabetes, hypertension, cancer, heart, and kidney disease.”

India has seen a steady decline in the number of Covid-19 deaths. With 31,358 deaths till Saturday, the case fatality rate stood at 2.35%.

According to the health ministry data, the recovery rate has also gone up to 63.5%.