India's 1st mobile I-Lab for COVID testing

New Delhi: As COVID-19 recovery rate improves to 52.96 per cent across India with 1.94 lakh people cured so far, the Centre on Thursday introduced the country's first mobile I-Lab to conduct testing of the infectious disease in remote, interior and inaccessible areas.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan launched the "India's first mobile I-Lab" to diagnose novel coronaviurs or COVID-19 disease.

The Infectious Disease Diagnostic Lab (I-LAB) has capability to perform 25 COVID-19 RT-PCR tests in a day. It can also test 300 ELISA tests per day and also additional tests for TB and HIV as per CGHS rates. The I-LAB is supported by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, under the Covid Command strategy.

The Lab was launched at a time when the number of COVID-19 infected persons across the country has risen to 3,66,946 as per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) data. But the good news is that 7,390 COVID-19 patients were cured in the last 24 hours and a total of 1,94,324 patients have so far recovered from the deadly virus. The recovery rate has risen to 52.96 per cent, the health ministry said.

Currently, 1,60,384 active cases are under medical supervision. The number of COVID-19 testing labs have also been increased to 953 that include 699 government and 254 private labs. Of these labs, Real-Time RT-PCR based testing is conducted in 540 labs that include 349 run by the government and 191 by private sectors. TrueNat based testing is being done in 325 government and 15 private labs. (IANS)

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