Coronavirus / India has completed conducting 50 crore COVID-19 tests: ICMR

New Delhi: India on Wednesday completed 500 million tests to detect Coronavirus disease (Covid-19). The first Covid-19 test was conducted on January 24, 2020.

“With an average daily testing of at least 1.7 million in the month of August, India has tested 500 million samples across the country till date,” said ICMR in a statement.

The last 100 million tests were performed in only 55 days. On July 21, 2021, India tested 450 million Covid-19 samples.

The government attributes it to rapidly increasing testing infrastructure and capacity across the country.

According to ICMR, which is responsible for overseeing Covid-19 testing, it has been enhancing the testing capability across the country by leveraging technology and facilitating innovation in affordable diagnostic kits.

The testing strategy has been carefully calibrated to increase access and availability of testing over the months. “We have seen that exponential increase in testing led to early identification, prompt isolation and effective treatment of Covid-19 cases. This testing milestone is testimony to the fact that India has been successful in implementing strategy of 5T approach --Test, Track, Trace, Treat and use of Technology -- efficiently, which will enable us to contain the spread of the pandemic,” said Dr Balram Bhargava, director general, ICMR.

Close to 3,000 labs (2,876) are approved to perform Covid-19 tests in the country, and even now, mass testing is on in areas showing a high positivity rate. Positivity rate is the percentage of people testing positive for the virus of the total tests conducted.

Of the 2,876 approved labs, 1,322 are dedicated government laboratories.

Several advancements have been made towards reducing turnaround time of tests. Easy, at-home self-diagnostic kits have been developed and approved to make it easy for people to perform the test at home.

“Enhanced production of diagnostic kits has made India Atma Nirbhar, which has resulted in reduction of costs and improved availability of testing kits,” Dr Bhargava added.