Intelligent Testing Strategy for being 'ahead of virus': ICMR

New Delhi: The Indian Council of Medical Research on Monday said that India developed an Intelligent Testing Strategy to remain 'ahead of the virus' by developing testing infrastructure that is laboratories and other means of testing.

According to ICMR, the country now has capacity of testing 2 lakh samples per day. "India now has 610 total labs (432 public, 178 private) and is currently testing 1.1 lakh samples in a day and has the capacity to test 1.4 lakh samples per day, which is being raised to 2 lakh samples per day," said the ICMR.

The apex medical research body in the country said most states have been working with the National Tuberculosis Elimination Program (NTEP) to deploy TrueNAT machines for COVID-19 testing. Through this machine, testing is done in such areas or districts where modern virological laboratories in private or public sectors don't exist.

This also results in relief to the testing infrastructure as it is not overwhelmed in any state to date. "No state has a significant backlog of samples to be tested," said the ICMR, adding, "More labs are being set up and additional machines are deployed in states like UP, Bihar, West Bengal as well as rest of the country to meet possible higher requirements."

With around 7,000 new cases in a day, India's tally of novel coronavirus cases surpassed that of Iran's as it recorded 1,38,845 till Monday, experts say, among other reasons, more number of tests per day is an important factor responsible for more number of cases.