NITI Aayog says Centre will review guidelines for on-demand COVID-19 testing

Even as the Centre has set new record in COVID-19 testing held per day, NITI Aayog has said that it will review the guidelines to see if it can be made available on an on-demand basis for the people. NITI Aayog member Dr VK Paul, at a press briefing on Tuesday, said the government would review the guidelines for testing. This was in response to the question on why on-demand testing is not being implemented for those who are willing to pay for it.

"Practically it is already on demand in many ways. We will review this looking at the capacity and access to people. We are almost there. We have to make sure that the resources are used for the very best purpose. Frivolous use of these technologies and resources is not desirable," he said. At present, an individual needs to get a COVID-19 test prescribed by a qualified medical practitioner.

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India's COVID tally

A spike of 55,079 cases took India's COVID-19 tally past 27 lakh on Tuesday, while 19.77 lakh people have so far recuperated from the disease pushing the recovery rate to 73.18 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry data. The COVID-19 caseload stood at 27,02,742, while the death toll climbed to 51,797 with 876 people succumbing to the disease in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed. Case fatality rate stands at 1.92 per cent. There are 6,73,166 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which is 24.91 per cent of the total caseload, while the number of recoveries has risen to 19,77,779.

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