India ramps up COVID-19 testing infrastructure, gets 1370 labs in 7 months: Health Ministry

The Health Ministry informed that the increased set up of its testing infrastructure has helped India in successfully conducting over 2 crore COVID-19 tests.

New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry on Thursday (August 7, 2020) said that India's coronavirus COVID-19 testing infrastructure has increased to as many as1370 labs now from just one lab operatonal in January 2020. 

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday informed that the increased set up of its testing infrastructure has helped India in successfully conducting over 2 crore COVID-19 tests.

The MoHFW said in a tweet: "#IndiaFightsCorona India has substantively ramped up its testing infrastructure from one lab in Jan 2020 to 1370 labs today. Expanded diagnostic lab network and facilitation for easy testing across the country has given a boost and India has done more than 2 crore tests presently."

The Health Ministry also said that the daily new recoveries are increasing steadily.

"The progressively increasing daily new recoveries are due to a focused attention on surveillance, containment and effective clinical management. India created a network of Covid Dedicated Hospitals to manage the cases," it said. 

It also said, "India has one of the lowest deaths/million compared to many countries."

"Focused and coordinated implementation of "TEST, TRACK, TREAT" strategy focusing on early identification and effective clinical management has resulted in low and continuously sliding Case Fatality Rate (CFR)," the Ministry added in another tweet.

With a single-day spike of 56,282 new COVID-19 cases reported on Thursday, India`s COVID-19 tally reached 19,64,537 with 5,95,501 active cases and 13,28,336 cured or discharged patients.

An increase of 904 fatalities adds to the total tally of deaths to 40,699. The ministry said that the recovery rate has reached a record high of 67.62 per cent among COVID-19 patients and the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) stands at 2.07 per cent.

"The total recoveries of COVID-19 patients have jumped to 13,28,336 with 46,121 COVID-19 patients being discharged in the last 24 hours. With such a consistent increase in recoveries, the gap between recovered patients and active COVID-19 cases has reached 7,32,835," the ministry said in a statement.

The Health Ministry said active cases as a percentage of total cases have seen a significant drop from 34.17 per cent on July 24 to 30.31 per cent.