Covid-19: Now India can do 1 lakh COVID-19 tests daily, mortality rate almost lowest in world: Harsh Vardhan

Indian can now do one lakh COVID-19 tests per day, said Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday while interacting with senior officials of various districts of Jammu and Kashmir over coronavirus via video-conferencing.

The minister also said that the country's COVID-19 mortality rate is one of the lowest in the world with 3.2 per cent.

"As we are seeing continuously of late, our recovery rate is getting better every day. Today our recovery rate is at 31.7 per cent. In the fight against COVID-19, our mortality rate is almost the lowest in the world. Today the mortality rate is around 3.2 per cent, in several states it is even less than this. The global fatality rate is around 7-7.5 per cent," Harsh Vardhan said.

"I had earlier said that we will increase our testing capacity to 1 lakh tests per day by May 31. We have already built it. Now, we can do one lakh tests per day. 86,191 tests were done on May 11. There are 347 government labs and 137 private labs in the country. In February, we had only one lab NIV Pune. India has now 484 labs," he said.

Speaking further, the minister said: "Till today morning, there are 70,756 COVID-19 positive cases in the country and 22,455 recovered. In the last 14 days, our doubling rate was 10.9. In the last 7 days, it was around 10.8 and it is 12.2 in last three days. 0.41 per cent patients are on ventilators, 1.82 per cent on oxygen support and 2.31 per cent are in ICU."

The Union Health Minister said that the government 76.42 lakh N95 masks and 40.18 lakh PPE kits in the country.

"We have supplied 76.42 lakh N95 masks and 40.18 lakh PPE kits in the country. There are 880 dedicated COVID hospitals having the capacity of 1,77,498 beds. 2,058 COVID health centres have been developed in the country which has the capacity of 1,32,746 beds. For asymptotic patients, there are 5,424 COVID care centres which have the facility of 4.73 lakh patients," he said.

Harsh Vardhan said that there are 8,147 quarantine centres have been developed in the country.

He informed that recovery rate is 78 per cent and doubling time is 24 days in Jammu and districts of Bandipora, Shopian, Anantnag and Srinagar are in red zone.

The minister also asserted that non-COVID programmes should not be affected in this situation. 

-ANI

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