New Delhi: World Health Organisation-WHO in its Guidance Note on ‘Public Health Criteria to Adjust Public Health and Social Measures in the Context of COVID-19’ has advised comprehensive surveillance for suspected cases. WHO has advised that a country needs 140 tests per day per million population.
The Union Health Ministry has said that 22 States and Union Territories in the country are already conducting 140 and more tests per day per million and are being regularly advised to increase the testing capacity to match the WHO advised levels of testing.
The Ministry said, one of the factors strongly aiding the increasing numbers of COVID-19 tests in the country is the steadily growing network of labs for testing of COVID-19. With 865 labs in the government sector and 358 private labs, the total number of testing labs in the country has now gone up to 1,223.
It said, the expansion of laboratory capacity has seen exponential increase from one lab in January 2020 to 121 labs in March and to 1,223 labs today. The Ministry said, during the last 24 hours, 3,20,161 samples were tested. The cumulative number of samples tested, as of now is over 1 crore 24 lakh. The testing per million for India is consistently rising and now it has crossed 8,994 tests.
