PremiumIn large cities the focus was mainly on RT PCR which is the standard test but in district level the backbone of testing has been TrueNAT and CBNAAT
New Delhi: The government aims to increase country’s covid-19 testing capacity to 45 lakh per day by the end of June from present 16-20 lakh tests each day, the union health ministry said on Thursday. India conducted a record 20.55 lakh tests in last 24 hours.
In parallel, while the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has also approved a home-based rapid antigen testing (RAT) kit manufactured by Mylab Discovery Solutions Ltd, Pune, more such kits will soon be available in the market.
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Premium Premium “Testing kits for home testing will be available in market in 3-4 days. While one has already been approved, kits by three more companies are in pipeline and likely to get the approval within a week," Dr Balram Bhargava, Director General ICMR said.
“For ramping up capacity the ICMR has validated more than 105 RAT companies and approved 41 of them and 31 of them are indigenous," he said adding that out of the 45 lakh tests, 18 lakhs will be RT-PCR, while 27 lakh will be Rapid Antigen Tests. The ICMR chief said that the states have placed the order and they are rapidly enhancing their testing capacity.
Bhargava also explained the procedure of home testing. “For home testing, you buy test kit from chemist shop then download mobile app, register and read user manual and then you conduct the test yourself and click mobile image and upload mobile phone gives test result. This ensures patient confidentiality, the data stored in secure server and linked with ICMR database," said Bhargava.
“In large cities the focus was mainly on RT PCR which is the standard test but in district level the backbone of testing has been TrueNAT and CBNAAT, while in rural areas RAT is the backbone of testing," he said. Bhargava said that in the second wave, the government had to increase the RAT testing. The ICMR has written to all chief secretaries in this regard.
“Multiple 24X7 RAT booths to be set up in cities, towns and villages. RATS to be allowed at all government and private healthcare facilities (no accreditation required). RAT booths to be set up with the community in schools, colleges, community centres, RWA offices etc. All RTPCR and RAT test results should be uploaded on ICMR portal," the ICMR chief said.
"We have encouraged testing at all primary health centres and sub centres which are 1,87,601 so testing. Those testing positive can be isolated immediately and those testing negative and are still symptomatic their samples need to be sent for RT-PCR testing so that will have to go to a facility. But if the positivity rate is high then RAT will be able to isolate them very fast," he said.
Bhargava said there are 2,553 government and private covid-19 testing laboratories established across the country over the last 16 months. Emphasising on the lack of covid appropriate in the country Bhargava cited one study where is he said that only 50% people in India wear masks.
“During a study over 2,000 people were surveyed across 25 cities. And it was found that of the 50% wearing a mask, 64% cover their mouth but not nose, 20% have it on chin and 2% mask on neck.
During a press briefing on covid-19 situation in the country, Lav Agarwal Joint Secretary Union Health Ministry highlighted a continuous decline in the covid-19 active cases in the last 15 days.
"From being 17.13% reported on May 3, the active cases now comprise 12.1% of the country's total infections. A positive trend in recovery has also been noted. The recovery rate which was 81.7% on May 3 has increased to 86.7% now," he said.
“India has also recorded a consistent upward trend in weekly tests since mid-February with average daily tests increased by 2.3 times in last 12 weeks," said Agarwal adding that after a consistent increase in case positivity for 10 weeks, a decline in case positivity since last 2 weeks has been reported.
Agarwal said the country's positivity rate in the last ten has been recorded less than 20% and positivity rate was recorded at 13.31% on Wednesday which was lowest in a month.
“A decline has been observed in six states which were major contributors to active cases in the country -- Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh Gujarat," said Agarwal.
Seven states have more than 25 per cent positivity rate, while 9 states have between 20-25 positivity rate. Twenty-two states have more than 15% positivity rate, 13 states have 5 to 15% positivity rate and one state has less than 5% positivity, he said.
Agarwal also noted that the number of districts with a week-on-week increase in weekly tests and decline in positivity considered for the week has increased from 210 to 303 districts. "Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Jharkhand are 10 states where a decline in cases and decline in positivity in the last 3 weeks have been observed," he said.
Tamil Nadu, Meghalaya Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Mizoram are states showing a rise in cases and rise in positivity in last three weeks, Agarwal said adding that there are 89 districts where a decreasing trend in cases is being noted and there are 123 districts where a decreasing trend in case positivity is being observed for last 3 weeks.
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