From Our Bureau
2ND JULY 2020
India witnessed a surge in COVID-19 positive cases with 19,148 fresh cases reported on Thursday, taking the country’s cumulative tally to 6,04,641. The death toll rose to 17,834, with 434 fatalities in the last 24 hours.
Coordinated efforts at all levels of government for prevention, containment and management of COVID-19 are showing encouraging results with consistently increasing gap between recoveries and active cases. As on date, there are 1,32,913 recovered cases more than the active COVID-19 cases.
Timely clinical management of COVID-19 cases has resulted in more than 10,000 daily recoveries. During the last 24 hours, a total of 11,881 COVID-19 patients have been cured, taking the cumulative figure to 3,59,860. This further takes the recovery rate to 59.52 percent. Presently, there are 2,26,947 active cases under medical supervision.
As per the “Test, Trace, Treat” strategy, there has been a steady rise in the samples tested every day with more than 90 lakh samples being tested till date. During the last 24 hours 2,29,588 samples have been tested. The cumulative number of samples tested, as on date, is 90,56,173.
The testing lab network in the country is further strengthened. With 768 labs in the government sector and 297 private labs, there are as many as 1,065 labs in the country. These include: Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 578 (Govt: 366 + Private: 212), TrueNat based testing labs: 398 (Govt: 370 + Private: 28) and CBNAAT based testing labs: 89 (Govt: 32 + Private: 57).
The total number of people being tested for COVID-19 tests in the country will soon touch one crore. This has been possible due to removal of all bottlenecks by Government of India. Various steps taken by the Central Government have paved the way for enhanced testing for COVID-19.
Through a significant step announced by the Central Government, COVID-19 testing can now be done on the prescription of any registered practitioner, and not exclusively a Government doctor. The Central Government has strongly advised States/Union Territories to take immediate steps to facilitate testing at the earliest by enabling all qualified medical practitioners, including private practitioners, to prescribe COVID test to any individual fulfilling the criteria for testing as per ICMR guidelines.
Reiterating that ‘Test-Track-Treat’ is the key strategy for early detection and containment of the outbreak, the Central Government has advised States/ UTs to take all possible steps to ensure full capacity utilization of all COVID-19 testing laboratories in the State/ UT. This will ensure full capacity utilization of all labs, especially the private ones, thus hugely benefitting the people.
Through a far-reaching move, ICMR has strongly recommended that laboratories should be free to test any individual in accordance to the ICMR Guidelines and State authorities must not restrict an individual from getting tested, as early testing will help in containing the virus and saving lives.
The Central Government has urged States to ramp up testing in a big way by using Rapid Antigen Point-of-Care tests in addition to RT-PCR, which is the gold standard for diagnosis of COVlD-19. The Rapid Antigen test is quick, simple, safe and can be used in containment zones as well as hospitals, as per criteria specified by ICMR for testing. ICMR is validating more such kits to increase the available options to the citizens.
Also, the Central Government has asked States/UTs to facilitate testing in a big way by adoption of ‘campaign mode’ by organizing testing camps, using mobile vans etc. This will effectively take COVID-19 tests to the people’s doorsteps in high incidence areas to collect samples of all symptomatic individuals as well as their contacts, and get those samples tested by using rapid antigen tests. (eom)
