by Peerzada Arshad Hamid
NEW DELHI, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- India's federal health ministry Wednesday said there has been an unprecedented upsurge in COVID-19 testing and the number of tests has crossed the 90 million mark.
"India has demonstrated an exponential increase in the number of COVID-19 cumulative tests since January 2020," a statement issued by India's federal health ministry said, with a total of over 90 million tests until Wednesday.
"With 1,145,015 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, the cumulative tests now stand at 90,090,122."
India's testing capacities have multiplied manifold with more than 1,900 laboratories set up across the country. Health officials said more than 1.5 million samples can be tested every day in India.
Officials see it as an achievement in the fight against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic since January 2020. "Progressive expansion in testing infrastructure has played a crucial role in the steep rise of testing numbers," the ministry said.
Health officials said very high countrywide testing on a sustained basis has brought down the national positivity rate, an indication that the rate of spread of COVID-19 infection was being effectively contained.
The ministry said 20 states have a positivity rate less than the national average. The cumulative positivity rate is 8.04 percent and is on a continuous decline.
"Higher testing across wide regions leads to early identification of positive cases, prompt tracking through efficient surveillance and tracing, and timely effective treatment in homes or facilities and in hospitals for severe cases. These measures in tandem eventually lead to lower mortality rates," the ministry said.
Officials said India is registering new recoveries more than the new cases consistently in the recent days. As a result, the active cases are steadily declining and stand at 826,876 on Wednesday and comprise only 11.42 percent of the total positive cases of the country.
"74,632 COVID-19 cases have recovered and discharged in the last 24 hours. A higher number of recoveries has aided the national recovery rate to further improve to 87.05 percent," the ministry said.
The total recovered cases stand at 63,01,927. The gap between recovered cases and active cases is 54,75,051. With an increasing number of recoveries, this gap is continuously widening.
On Wednesday morning, 63,509 new COVID-19 cases and 730 related deaths were recorded in the country during the past 24 hours, which has pushed the country's COVID-19 tally to 7,239,389 including 110,586 deaths.
Globally India is the third worst-hit country due to COVID-19 pandemic. Enditem
