Over one crore COVID-19 tests performed in India since pandemic outbreak

India achieved a remarkable feat today by performing more than one crore COVID-19 tests since the outbreak of Corona pandemic in India. Starting from less than 100 tests per day, a multiple-fold increase in a few months was made possible by dedicated teams of various stakeholders including research institutions, medical colleges, testing laboratories, Ministries, airlines and postal services.

AIR correspondent reports, the country is going through an unprecedented crisis due to Coronavirus pandemic. To effectively deal with this situation, the government adopted the test-track-treat strategy for early detection and containment of the pandemic.

Government promoted the indigenous manufacturers for developing equipments and materials required for COVID-19 testing to become self-reliant. In January this year, India had only one testing laboratory for COVID-19 at National Institute of Virology, Pune. Today, more than 11 hundred government and private laboratories chains are testing Corona virus samples across the country.

ICMR is continuously ramping up its facilities by approving new laboratories, RT-PCR kits, True Nat Test, CBNAAT Test for COVID-19 testing. ICMR has also recommended the use of rapid antigen test kits for diagnosis of COVID-19 in containment zones in combination with the RT-PCR test. India is also producing high-quality, low-cost testing swabs which resulted in the production of millions of swabs in record time and at a fraction of the cost of the imported ones.

However, in spite of these developments, access to testing still remains a huge challenge in a large country like India. ICMR has suggested to include additional testing methods to improve the access and availability of testing in various parts of the country.