National: India achieves another crucial milestone in the fight against COVID-19. A record number of more than 10.5 Lakh COVID-19 tests has been done on a single day. In the last 24 hours, 10,55,027 tests were done. India is strengthening its national diagnostic capacity of testing to more than 10 Lakh samples daily.
The cumulative tests until now are more than 4.14 Crore (4,14,61,636). The Central government is also keeping in view the evolving global context of COVID-19. The main strategy of the Centre is “Test, Track and Treat”. This strategy is in close coordination with the states and Union Territories (UT).
Due to aggressive testing, the identifying of positive cases is now easy. There is also a spike in the Tests Per Million (TPM). This is due to more testing capacity and cumulative tests. On August 30, the Tests Per Million is 30,044.
As per the WHO guidance note, a country needs 140 tests/day/million. The guidance note is “Public Health Criteria to Adjust Public Health and Social Measures in the Context of COVID-19”.
Many states are showing a better performance by registering lower Positivity Rate than the national average.
The TESTING strategy is also ensuring a rise in the expansion of the national lab network. Now, there are a total of 1583 labs providing comprehensive testing facilities to people. There are 1003 labs in the Government sector and 580 labs in the private sector. These include:
Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 811. Government: 463 and Private: 348.
TrueNat based testing labs: 651. Government: 506 and Private: 145.
CBNAAT based testing labs: 121. Government: 34 and Private: 87.