Govt Aims To Scale Up COVID-19 Testing To 45 Lakh Tests Per Day By June End

In a boost for the national effort against the COVID-19 pandemic, the government on Thursday (20 May) said that it was aiming to scale up the daily COVID-19 testing capacity to 45 lakh tests by the end of June, reports Livemint.

This would be significantly higher than the 16-20 lakh tests being conducted each day on average. On Thursday (20 May), the total number of tests performed stood at 20.55 lakh.

Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has also approved a home-based rapid antigen testing (RAT) kit manufactured by Pune based Mylab Discovery Solutions Limited. The home testing kits are likely to hit the markets in about three to four days.

According to Dr Balram Bhargava who is the Director-General of ICMR, home testing kits developed by three more companies are in pipeline and are likely to be approved within a week.

Dr Bhargava also said, “For home testing, you buy a test kit from chemist shop then download the mobile app, register and read the user manual and then you conduct the test yourself and click the mobile image and upload mobile phone gives test result. This ensures patient confidentiality, the data stored in a secure server and linked with ICMR database.”