June 18, 2020
Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare Dr. Harsh Vardhan launched India’s first mobile I-Lab (Infectious disease diagnostic lab) for COVID-19 testing for last mile testing access. It will be deployed in remote, interior and inaccessible parts of the country and have capability to perform 25 COVID-19 RT-PCR tests/Day, 300 ELISA tests/day, additional tests for TB, HIV etc. as per CGHS rates. The Infectious Disease Diagnostic Lab (I-LAB) is supported by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology, under the COVID Command strategy.
A spokesperson of the Central government stated that the number of government labs has been increased to 699 and private labs has been increased to 254 (A total of 953). The break-up is a) Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs are 540 (Govt: 349 + Private: 191), b) TrueNat based testing labs 340 (Govt: 325 + Private: 15) and CBNAAT based testing labs are 73 (Govt: 25 + Private: 48).
He said in the last 24 hours, 1,65,412 samples were tested. The total number of samples tested thus far is 62,49,668. During the last 24 hrs, 7390 COVID-19 patients were cured. A total of 1,94,324 patients, so far, have been cured of COVID-19. The recovery rate rises to 52.96%. Currently, 1,60,384 active cases are under medical supervision, he concluded.
