India conducts 11.72 lakh daily COVID-19 tests, health ministry says numbers one of highest in world

Cumulative tests for detection of COVID-19 rose to 4,55,09,380 in the country with a record 11,72,179 tests being conducted on Wednesday, the Union Health Ministry said underlining that India's daily testing numbers are one of the highest in the world.  Higher testing numbers subsequently result in lowered positivity rate, it said on Thursday.  

"India has witnessed an unprecedented surge in testing. Over 11.7 lakh tests were done in 24 hours," the ministry said.   From conducting merely 10 tests per day on January 30, the daily average has crossed more than 11 lakh, the ministry said, adding this demonstrates an exponential increase in the daily COVID-19 testing in the country.

"Such high levels of testing on a sustained basis over a period of time in widespread areas enables early diagnosis, and in turn facilitates seamless isolation and effective hospitalisation. This eventually leads to lower mortality rate.

"Higher numbers of testing also subsequently result in lowered positivity rate," the ministry said.  India's COVID-19 case fatality rate due to the disease has further dropped to 1.75 per cent as on date, while the national recovery rate has risen to 77.09 per cent.

There are 8,15,538 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 21.16 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.  Asked about rapid antigen tests comprising a large chunk of the total tests conducted now, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan at a press briefing on Thursday said that there is no uniform picture across the country on this.   In Tamil Nadu, more than 90 per cent tests even today are RT-PCR tests while there are other states where the RT-PCR testing, TrueNat and CBNAAT testing capacity is limited and therefore in those states, if there are containment zones or buffer zones, one cannot be satisfied with limited testing, he stressed.

The ICMR's guidelines clearly lay down that rapid antigen tests are ideal screening tests for densely populated areas, for containment and buffer zones so why not use them there, he said.   "However, I  do admit there are states where the optimal capacity of RT-PCR off late is not being utilised and we have in the health ministry drawn the attention of those states that they do have an installed capacity of conducting more RT-PCR tests and hence they need to scale it up," Bhushan said.

ICMR Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said that WHO has lauded India for use of rapid antigen tests in a calibrated and distributive manner.   The surge in testing has been made possible by an equally speedy expansion in the testing lab network across the country. India has as on date 1,623 labs with 1,022 in the government sector and 601 private labs, the ministry said.    With a record single-day spike of 83,883 infections, India's COVID-19 caseload mounted to 38,53,406, while the death toll climbed to 67,376 with 1,043 people succumbing to the disease in a day, the ministry's data updated at 8 am showed.