On Wednesday, India accomplished a major milestone by testing more than 2 lakh samples for the COVID-19 disease, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) said in a press communiqué released through the Press Information Bureau (PIB).
With 2,15,195 samples examined in the last 24 hours, the total tally of samples tested so far has reached 73,52,911.
"While 1,71,587 samples were tested in Government labs, 43,608 were tested by private labs. Private labs have also reached the highest per day sampling with this quantity," read the ministry's press note.
The diagnostic tests comprise of both the standard RT-PCR based testing labs that are out for viral genetic material in the throat or nasal swabs used to recognize a person as infected and tests that look out for anti-viral antibodies used for supervision. The number of COVID-19 patients recovering in India has also increased by up to 2,58,684 patients with a recovery rate of 56.71 percent as per the most recent data.
Over the past three months, India has significantly ramped up testing capacity - testing for COVID-19 is now accessible in 1,000 labs across the country. This includes 730 labs in the government sector and 270 private labs. The figure is also comprehensive of 557 RT-PCR testing labs, 363 TrueNat testing labs, and 80 CBNAAT testing labs.
Improved testing also makes it incumbent on the healthcare infrastructure's ability to respond to the test results. Experts believe that while boosted testing is reassuring, the various state governments will be expected to improve upon their respective healthcare resources and systems to comprehend the patients likely to be recognized through increased testing.
Meanwhile the Government today said that the recovery rate of COVID-19 has improved to 56.70 percent in the country and 2,58, 685 people have been cured so far.
During the last 24 hours, 10,495 people have recovered from COVID-19.
Presently, the total number of active corona cases in the country is 1,83,022.
The Health and Family Welfare Ministry said 15,968 new cases of Covid-19 have been reported in the last 24 hours taking the total number of cases to 4,56,183.
Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research, ICMR said that 2,15,195 tests were conducted by the various laboratories for coronavirus in the country in the last 24 hours.
This is the highest number of tests conducted by laboratories in one day.