COVID-19 tests breach three crore mark in Karnataka
Karnataka has reached one other milestone in its pandemic management measures with COVID-19 tests breaching the three crore mark. With 1,50,168 new samples examined in the final 24 hours, the entire variety of tests touched 3,01,49,275 on Thursday.
Karnataka is the third State in the nation – after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra – to have examined over three crore samples.
The State had examined a complete of over one crore samples from March final 12 months when the pandemic hit Karnataka until November 21, 2020. Subsequently, one other one crore samples had been examined in 4 months. On March 17, 2021, the entire variety of tests breached the 2 crore mark.
Nearly 83% of the entire 3,01,49,275 tests carried out until date have been carried out utilizing the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) technique. RT-PCR is the gold customary that has negligible probabilities of false negativity.
Health and Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar mentioned Uttar Pradesh leads the chart with 5 crore tests; U.P. has a inhabitants three occasions that of Karnataka. Maharashtra, which has practically twice the inhabitants of Karnataka, stands second with 3.6 crore tests.
In south India, Karnataka is adopted by Tamil Nadu and Kerala. While Tamil Nadu has carried out 2.8 crore tests, the quantity in Kerala is 2 crore. Andhra Pradesh has carried out 1.9 crore check and Telangana 1.5 crore tests.
Testing had been ramped up from May 2020. From a complete of three,031 tests in March 2020, the State carried out practically 16 lakh tests in August. This additional went as much as practically 20 lakh tests in September. The tests per million went up from 44,099 on September 1 to 72,541 on September 30. On October 2, the variety of tests had touched 50,89,730. The one-crore mark was breached on November 21, 2020 and the 2 crore mark on March 17, 2021.
V. Ravi, nodal officer for genomic affirmation of SARS-CoV-2 in Karnataka and member of State COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), mentioned, “From five ICMR VRDL testing labs – NIV State unit and VRDL labs in BMCRI, Mysuru, Hassan and Shivamogga – in March, we had 15 labs by April 12, 2020. On April 14, the Prime Minister announced that every district in the country will have one lab by May 31, after which the testing infrastructure was expanded.”
The response was overwhelming. In six months, there was an exponential rise in the variety of labs. Currently, a complete of 192 centres, together with 66 authorities laboratories, are purposeful in Karnataka with a mean capability of 1,03,900 tests per day, excluding Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT).
C.N. Manjunath, nodal officer for labs and testing in the State COVID-19 job pressure, mentioned though 1.4 lakh samples being examined day by day is an effective quantity, there’s a have to additional ramp up testing in high-risk districts.