India Will Reach 2 Million Coronavirus Tests Today, Says Harsh Vardhan

Covid-19 Tests: We are continuously increasing our testing capacity, Harsh Vardhan said. (File)

Exuding confidence that India will achieve the testing capacity of 1 lakh COVID-19 tests per day before May 31, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday said that the country will reach the mark of 2 million (i.e. 20 lakhs) coronavirus tests today.

"Yesterday we have tested over 90,000 COVID-19 samples. We are continuously increasing our testing capacity. Though we had earlier said that we will increase our testing capacity to 1 lakhs tests per day before May 31, but we will achieve it before the due date. Today, we will reach 2 million tests countrywide," said Mr Vardhan here at National Centre for Diseases Control (NCDC).

Union Health Minister Mr Vardhan visited NCDC to inaugurate the COVID-19 realtime automated testing machine. NCDC is India's premier institute for research in epidemiology and communicable disease control.

"Across the country, Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and NCDC have developed over 500 labs for testing COVID-19 samples. I came here to inaugurate Rosch company's Cobas 6800 machine. It is fully automated and can conduct 800 tests in a day, even if it is not operated in the night. I am dedicating this machine to the nation," he said.

"In this series, two machines were installed earlier-one in ICMR, Bhuwanesar and one in National Institute of Virology, Pune. The latest is installed here in NCDC. We have ordered more machines and we will deploy these machines in various parts of the country," he added.

As per the latest update by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), there are 49,219 active cases in the country while 26,235 patients have been cured and discharged, one migrated, and 2,549 deaths so far.