India achieves remarkable feat of conducting more than four lakh COVID-19 tests in single day

India achieved a remarkable feat today as more than four lakh samples were tested for coronavirus in a single day. Indian Council of Medical Research said that a record four lakh 20 thousand 898 samples were tested for corona virus within 24 hours. So far, laboratories have conducted one crore 58 lakh 49 thousand 68 tests in the country.

Starting from less than 100 tests per day, a multiple fold increase in a few months was made possible by dedicated teams of research institutions, medical colleges, testing laboratories, Ministries, airlines and postal services. AIR correspondent reports, the government has adopted the test-track-treat strategy for early detection and containment of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Central government has advised all States and Union Territories to keep up the strategy of aggressive testing, tracking and treatment to deal with coronavirus crisis. To become self reliant in testing, government has promoted the indigenous manufacturers for developing equipments and materials required for Covid-19 testing.

In January this year, India had only one testing laboratory for COVID-19 at National Institute of Virology, Pune. Today, more than 13 hundred government and private laboratories chains are testing corona virus samples across the country. ICMR is continuously ramping up its testing capabilities by approving new laboratories, RT-PCR kits, True Nat Test, CBNAAT Test and rapid antigen test kits.

India is also producing millions of high quality, low cost testing swabs at a fraction of cost of the imported ones. However, in spite of these developments, access to testing still remains a huge challenge in a large country like India. Health Ministry and ICMR has asked the States and Union Territories to include additional testing methods to improve the availability of testing.