COVID-19: India conducting 14,640 tests per million, 2 crore samples tested so far

India has ramped up its Coronavirus testing capacity and has tested 2,02,02,858 samples since the pandemic began, the Union Health Ministry said on Monday. With 3,81,027 samples tested in the last 24 hours, the number of Test Per Million (TPM) has increased to 14640.

While the country's TPM has demonstrated a steady upward trend indicating the growing testing network, 24 States and Union Territories have reported higher testing per million than the national average, the government said.

The top five states/UTs that are performing the best are Goa (83,249), UTs of Dadra and Nagar Haveli (70,809) and Ladakh (65,088), Delhi (57,383) and UT of Andaman and Nicobar (53,242). Among larger states that have higher COVID-19 caseloads, Tamil Nadu has a TPM of 34,771, followed by Andhra Pradesh (24,609), Karnataka (21,373) and Maharashtra (17,731).

The Health Ministry said over two crore tests thus far is pursuant to the key strategy followed by State/UT Governments under the guidance of Centre for management of COVID-19 to 'Test aggressively, Track efficiently and Isolate and Treat promptly'. Effective implementation of this approach has led to ramping up the testing capacity across the country and facilitated widespread COVID testing of people, the Ministry said.

The testing lab network in the country has also strengthened with 1,348 labs across India; 914 labs in the government sector and 434 private labs. These include:

• Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 686 (Govt: 418 + Private: 268)
• TrueNat based testing labs: 556 (Govt: 465 + Private: 91)
• CBNAAT based testing labs: 106 (Govt: 31 + Private: 75)

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Coronavirus outbreak in India

India's total COVID-19 cases stand at 17,65,560 of which 5,79,357 are active while 11,86,203 have recovered. 38,135 people have died so far. The lockdown has been extended to August 31 under 'Unlock 3'. Meanwhile, India continues to improve the Case Fatality Rate (CFR), and maintain its global position of having one of the lowest COVID fatalities rates. With a further fall, the current CFR touched 2.11% Monday.

In the last two days, a lot of high-profile politicians and persons holding constitutional office have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. On August 2, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa and Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit tested positive for COVID-19. Uttar Pradesh Technical Education Minister Kamal Rani Varun passed away due to COVID-19 after being hospitalized for almost two weeks. Earlier in the day, Congress Lok Sabha MP Karti Chidambaram revealed that he too tested positive. 

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