According to the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data during the last 24 hours, 3,20,161 samples for COVID-19 have been tested. The cumulative number of samples tested, as of now is 1,24,12,664. The testing per million for India is consistently rising. On Wednesday it has touched 8994.7.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), while explaining the concept of comprehensive surveillance and testing of suspect cases in a guidance note on "Public Health Criteria to Adjust Public Health and Social Measures in the Context of COVID-19", advised that a country needs 140 tests per day per million population.
In this connection, the ministry stated, "With the various coordinated efforts made by the Centre and the States/UTs, 22 States/UTs in India are already conducting 140 and more tests per day per million. States/UTs are being regularly advised to increase the testing capacity to match the WHO advised levels of testing".
One of the factors strongly aiding the increasing numbers of COVID-19 tests in the country is the steadily growing network of labs for testing of COVID-19. The ministry said, "With 865 labs in the government sector and 358 private labs, the total number of testing labs is 1223, as on date". In addition to the gold standard for test, RT PCR, TrueNat and CBNAAT are also used to augment this facility.
According to the health ministry data there are:
• Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 633 (Govt: 391 + Private: 242)
• TrueNat based testing labs: 491 (Govt: 439 + Private: 52)
• CBNAAT based testing labs: 99 (Govt: 35 + Private: 64)
The expansion of laboratory capacity has seen exponential increase from one lab in Jan 2020 to 121 labs in March 2020 and to 1223 labs as of date.
