Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that scientists at CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, Pune have designed a portable oxygen unit that can be used in homes, hospitals and remote rural areas.

In a series of tweets today, he said, one of the strengths of this unit is that it does not require an oxygen cylinder and the use of this unit can help in reducing the demand for ventilators and oxygen cylinders. The Minister said, if the corona patients get oxygen initially, they do not need ventilators later. He said this can prove to be very important in the Covid-19 pandemic situation.

The Government today said that a total of three lakh 21,723 people affected with coronavirus have been cured in the country so far. In the past 24 hours, 12,010 people have recovered from Covid-19 and with this, the recovery rate has reached 58.67 percent.

The Health and Family Welfare Ministry said a total of 19,459 new cases of Covid-19 have been reported in the country within 24 hours taking the total number of cases to 5,48,318. In a single day, 380 deaths have been reported taking the nationwide toll to 16,475. Presently, the total number of active corona cases in the country is two lakh 10,120.

Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research, ICMR said that 1,70.560 tests of Coronavirus samples were conducted by the various laboratories in the country within 24 hours. So far, 83 lakh 98 thousand 362 tests have been conducted.

ICMR is continuously scaling up its testing facilities for Covid-19 by giving approval to government and private laboratories. As of now, total of one thousand 47 laboratories across India have been given the approval to conduct the test for Covid-19. This includes 760 government laboratories and 287 private laboratory chains.