Centre launches India’s first mobile I-LAB Infectious Disease Diagnostic Lab for coronavirus COVID-19 testing

Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan on Thursday launched India’s first mobile I-Lab (Infectious disease diagnostic lab) for coronavirus COVID-19 testing for last-mile testing access.

It will be deployed in remote, interior and inaccessible parts of the country and have the 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.

During the last 24 hrs, 7,390 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 per cent. Currently, 1,60,384 active cases are under medical supervision.

The number of government labs has been increased to 699 and private labs have been increased to 254 (A total of 953). The break-up is given as:

Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 540 (Govt: 349 + Private: 191)       

TrueNat based testing labs: 340 (Govt: 325 + Private: 15)   

CBNAAT based testing labs: 73 (Govt: 25 + Private: 48)    

In the last 24 hours, 1,65,412 samples were tested. The total number of samples tested thus far is 62,49,668.