ICMR Ramps Up Testing Capacity, Over 5 Million Samples Tested

The Indian Council of Medical Research said that the testing capacity has been increased to 1.4 lakhs per day.

Photo: ANI

New Delhi: India's apex medical body India Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Tuesday said over five million RT-PCR tests for COVID-19 infection have been done in the country. A total of 5,030,700 samples have been tested till June 9 in the country with 1,41,682 samples being tested in the last 24 hours till 9 AM, according to ICMR officials. ICMR also informed that the testing capacity per day has been increased from 1.2 lakh to 1.4 lakh. The number of laboratories conducting the test is 789 which includes 553 government and 231 private labs. A total of 5,030,700 samples have been tested on June 6 evening," an ICMR official told ANI. The capacity is being further raised to 2 lakh samples per day, sources said. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India reported the biggest spike of 9,987 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. The death toll for COVID-19 has risen to 7,466 and the total number of cases stands at 2,66,598.  The recovery rate of India stands 48.47% In a recent report by ICMR, the medical organization conducted a serosurvey and the initial report suggested that around 30 percent of the people living in containment zones have been infected by the virus and have quietly recovered. Though the ICMR clarified that these are just the initial results and the report has been submitted t the government but the final results are still awaited. Currently, ICMR is conducting serosurveys in several districts across India to assess the proportion of the population exposed to the virus including asymptomatic individuals. Also watch|COVID-19 cases surge past 73 lakh globally