GUWAHATI:
Assam has completed 5 million (over 55 lakh) Covid-19 tests from February 7, when the virus threat emerged, till December 8, averaging half million (five lakh) tests a month.
“My salute to our health workers and officials. Together, we are determined to fight the pandemic,” tweeted Assam health minister
Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday.
Health officials attributed the low positivity rate in the state to comparatively high number of testing, with the rate in Assam down to 0.47% as on Tuesday night.
Union ministry of health and family (MHFW) in a statement said
Uttar Pradesh has the highest cumulative testing with more than two crore tests, while Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka,
Maharashtra and
Andhra Pradesh are the other states with highest cumulative testing with more than one crore tests.
Considering the upsurge in the number of positive cases in other parts of the country, especially in the northwest and central India, the Assam health department has asked district health authorities to conduct a minimum of 30,000 tests a day recently. The number of Covid tests even went below 10,000 of late in the state following decline in positivity rate. Though it has been enhanced in the last couple of weeks, the testing rate is yet to go on an aggressive mode due to various constraints, said a source in the health department.
Data released by the MHFW on Wednesday stated that four northeastern states are included among 19 states and
Union Territories that have a weekly positivity rate of more than the national average. The four NE states — Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh,
Manipur and Nagaland — were showing a weekly positivity rate above the the national average of 3.23%.
At 11.90%, Nagaland has the fifth highest weekly positivity rate in the country, followed by Manipur (6.6%) at the 10th slot. Arunachal Pradesh (4.9%) and Meghalaya (4.2%) were listed at the 14th and 17th spots in the tally of states and Union Territories that have recorded weekly positivity rate above the national average.
In Assam, 94 cases were detected out of 19,955 tests conducted on Tuesday and 102 patients were discharged on the same day. Highest 14 cases were detected in Kamrup (Metro) district.
With this, the total cumulative cases of Covid-19 in Assam stood at 2,14,019. Of these, 97.86% have already recovered. There were 3,575 active Covid cases in the state as on Tuesday night.