Over 30 million samples tested for Covid-19 : Health ministry
EPIDEMIOLOGISTS SUGGEST THAT INDIA NEEDS TO KEEP TESTING AGGRESSIVELY BECAUSE THE POSITIVITY RATE IS STILL ON THE HIGH SIDE
nNEWDELHI: India has conducted in excess of 30 million tests for Covid-19, rapidly ramping up its testing infrastructure to detect infections and curb the spread of the virus, according to health ministry data released on Monday.
The country has so far tested 30, 041,400 samples after conducting 731,697 tests in the past 24 hours and is on course to testing one million a day by the end of August. The tests are being done across 1,469 diagnostic labs, with 969 labs in the government sector and 500 private labs approved for Covid-19 testing across the country, where the first sample was tested on January 23.
The government has attributed India’s low case fatality rate and improved recovery rate to aggressive testing, improvements in clinical treatment, supervised home isolation, use of non-invasive oxygen support and improved ambulance services to bring patients to hospitals without delay.
“The key is to identify those infected early and isolate them in time. The way testing has been ramped up in such a short span of time; it has significantly contributed in keeping the numbers low. The strategy of test, track and treat has proved highly effective, and will be continued further,” a government official said, requesting anonymity.
Epidemiologists suggest that India needs to keep testing aggressively because the positivity rate is still on the high side. India’s positivity rate, the people who test positive for the virus as a percentage of those tested, as of August 17 is 8.81%. “The cases are still rising and the positivity rate is not going down; that suggests aggressive testing should continue as transmission cycle has not been completely broken yet. Ideally, the positivity rate should be 5% or below,” says Dr Lalit Kant, former head, epidemiology and communicable disease, Indian Council of Medical Research.
The overall Covid-19 situation in India is seeing improvement. While India’s Covid-19 deaths have crossed the 50,000 mark, the health ministry says India is better placed than other countries such as the US, where the fatalities exceeded 50,000 in just 23 days, Brazil (95 days) and Mexico (141 days). It took India 156 days to reach the grim milestone.
India’s case fatality rate, the percentage of deaths with respect to the total number of positive cases of the disease, has seen a steady decline. From 3.33% on June 8, the death rate dropped to 1.92% as of August 17, suggesting the measures that the government has taken to curb the viral outbreak are working well.
“India has managed to keep the numbers low both in terms of cases and deaths considering India’s huge population and densely populated areas. More than the cases, what matters is how many lives we have managed to save, and the numbers say the country has done a decent job of bringing the fatality rate to below 2%,” says Dr Jugal Kishore, head, community medicine, Safdarjung Hospital.
The global case fatality rate currently stands at 3.54%, which is almost double that of India’s.
“Not many of the positive cases need hospitalization and most of those who are getting hospitalized are recovering well. There are fewer deaths, and that is because we are in a better position now to tell what medicines and therapies work,” said Dr Srikant Sharma, senior consultant, medicine department, Moolchand Hospital.