India has crossed a crucial milestone in the fight against COVID-19. For the first time, a record number of more than 10.5 lakh COVID tests have been conducted in a single day.

With 10,55,027 tests conducted in the 24 hours to Sunday afternoon, India has further strengthened the national diagnostic capacity of testing more than 10 lakh samples daily, noted the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in an official release.

With this achievement, the number of cumulative tests has crossed 4.14 crore (4,14,61,636). The central government, keeping in view the evolving global context of COVID-19, conceptualised and implemented the Continuum of Care strategy of “Test, Track and Treat” in close coordination with the state/UT governments. Pivoted on the strong pillar of aggressive testing, the positive cases are identified early which enables and ensures that their contacts are efficiently tracked in a timely manner. This is followed up with prompt isolation in home or facility setting for the mild and moderate cases, and hospitalisation for the severe and critical patients.

The exponential jump in the testing capacity and cumulative tests has resulted in an upsurge in the Tests Per Million. They stand at 30,044 now.

The 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 COVID-19 cases. The WHO has advised that a country needs 140 tests/day/ million population. In another row of achievements, all State/UTs have crossed the advised number of tests. Several States have demonstrated better performance by registering Positivity Rate lower than the national average.

The Testing strategy also ensured a steady expansion of the national lab network. Today, with 1,003 labs in the government sector and 580 private labs, 1583 labs are providing comprehensive testing facilities to the people. These include:

• Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 811 (Govt: 463 + Private: 348)
• TrueNat based testing labs: 651 (Govt: 506 + Private: 145)
• CBNAAT based testing labs: 121 (Govt: 34 + Private: 87)