National News

Telangana's Covid tests cross 40-lakh mark

In its fight against Covid-19, Telangana crossed a milestone on Friday with 40 lakh tests, health officials said.

Sentinel Digital Desk

HYDERABAD: In its fight against Covid-19, Telangana crossed a milestone on Friday with 40 lakh tests, health officials said. During the last 24 hours, the state conducted 38,484 tests taking the cumulative number of tests to 40,17,353. Eighteen government-run laboratories, 46 private laboratories and 1,076 Rapid Antigen test centres are conducting the tests. According to a bulletin released by the director of public health, out of 38,484 samples tested during the last 24 hours, 36,294 samples were tested in the government-run laboratories and 2,190 in private. Of the total samples 16,933 were primary and 4,618 were secondary. The authorities, however, released no data as to how many of the total tests conducted so far were Rapid Antigen Tests. Samples tested per million population ratio rose further to 1,07,935. The daily testing target for the state is 5,600 per day as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 140 per million per day. Meanwhile, the state reported 1,421 new cases, taking the overall tally to 2,29,001. Of this only 20,377 cases are active, including 17,214 who are in home or institutional isolation. Six more persons succumbed to the virus during the last 24 hours ending 8 p.m. Thursday, pushing the death toll to 1,298. The fatality stands at 0.56 per cent against the national average of 1.5 per cent. (IANS)