The Union Health Ministry said on Saturday that India gradually increased the Covid-19 test capacity to a record of 4.20 lakhs in a day. According to the ministry, due to the increase in the number of laboratories, it was possible to do so many tests. India had only one laboratory for testing Covid-19 in January. But now the number has increased to 1,301, including private laboratories.
The Health Ministry said that the revised guidelines of the ICMR and the efforts made by the states also helped in large-scale investigations. Till Friday, a total of 1,58,49,068 tests have been done for Covid-19 in the country. The ministry said that India has been investigating 3.50 lakh tests daily for the last one week.
According to the ministry, due to 4,20,898 tests conducted during the last 24 hours, the numbers of tests per million people in the country has increased to 11,485 and it is continuously increasing. The ministry said in a statement, "The central government has asked all states and union territories to aggressively conduct tests as well as maintain the strategy of 'test, track and treat' (investigation, monitoring and treatment)". It may initially bring more numbers of infected people, but it will decline gradually as seen by the targeted efforts of the Central Government in the National Capital Region of Delhi. "
On Saturday, the death rate of Covid-19 showed a significant decline in the death rate which was 2.35 percent while the recovery rate of people from the disease further improved to 63.
The Health Ministry said, "India is one of the countries with the lowest mortality rate in the world."
He said that the decline in mortality shows that the collective efforts of the Center, the state and the union territories have been affected. So far, 8,49,431 patients of Covid-19 have been cured in the country. The numbers of cured people is 3,93,360 more than the number of people undergoing treatment.
The numbers of coronavirus infected in India, however crossed 13 lakh with 48,916 new patients being received on Saturday. Two days earlier, the numbers of infected had crossed 12 lakh mark. The numbers of people who lost their lives in the country has increased to 31,358.
