As India on Sunday recorded 8.5 lakh coronavirus cases, the testing per million crossed 8,000 figure with 62.93 per cent patients recovering from the disease, a positive sign amid pandemic.
Focussed and coordinated steps taken in tandem by the Centre along with the states and the Union Territories (UTs) through a ”whole of government” approach, bolstered by effective clinical management of COVID-19 after early detection and timely diagnosis, led to a consistent increase in the recovered cases, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
In the last 24 hours, the Ministry, however, said a total of 19,235 people were cured of COVID-19. This has resulted in the cumulative total number of recovered cases rising to 5,34,620 on Sunday.
“The recovery rate has presently improved to 62.93 per cent,” the Ministry said.
As more people are recovering due to all-round efforts, the recovered cases exceed active cases by 2,42,362, it said, adding medical attention is being provided to all the 2,92,258 active cases.
The present health infrastructure dedicated to providing medical attention to the COVID affected includes 1,370 Dedicated COVID Hospitals (DCH), 3,062 Dedicated COVID Health Centres (DCHC), and 10,334 COVID Care Centres (CCC).
For the successful operation of these facilities, the Centre has so far provided 122.36 lakh Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits, 223.33 lakh N95 masks, and 21,685 ventilators to various states and UTs and central institutions.
Enabling factors like removing all impediments for COVID-19 testing and facilitation of widespread testing by states and UTs continues to result in a steady rise in the samples tested every day and during the last 24 hours 2,80,151 samples have been tested, it said.
“The cumulative number of samples tested as of now is 1,15,87,153. As a result of these efforts, the testing per million for India is presently 8,396.4,” the Ministry said.
A crucial supporting factor in progressive rise in testing numbers is continuous expansion of the country-wide diagnostic lab network, which as on date comprises 850 labs in the government sector and 344 private labs, totalling 1,194 labs.
Of the total 1,194 labs, 624 are Real-Time RT-PCR based testing labs that include 388 government and 236 private. A total of 472 TrueNat based testing labs are there in the country which include 427 government and 45 private. The CBNAAT based testing labs are 98 — 35 government and 63 private.
