The government said that tests being performed every day is higher than WHO’s recommendation of 140 tests per day per million population.

The COVID-19 testing per million for India is consistently rising and has touched 8994.7, government data showed on Wednesday.

The cumulative number of samples tested, as of now is 1,24,12,664 with 3,20,161 samples being tested in the last 24 hours, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

The government said that tests being performed every day is higher than the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s recommendation of 140 tests per day per million population.
“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. While explaining the concept of comprehensive surveillance and testing of suspect cases, WHO advises that a country needs 140 tests per day per million population,” the ministry said.
At present, 22 states and UTs in India are already conducting 140 and more tests per day per million. Other states and UTs are being regularly advised to increase the testing capacity to match the WHO advised levels of testing, the ministry added.

“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,” it said.
With 865 labs in the government sector and 358 private labs, the total number of testing labs is 1223, as on date. In addition to the gold standard for test, RT PCR, TrueNat and CBNAAT are also used to augment this facility.

The expansion of laboratory capacity has seen an exponential increase from one lab in Jan 2020 to 121 labs in March 2020 and to 1223 labs today, it added.

  coronavirus, covid testing in India, Covid-19, ministry of Health and Family Welfare, WHO