'Testing 1.3 billion people for COVID-19 neither possible nor feasible'

Testing 13 billion people for COVID19 is neither possible nor feasible Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said in an exclusive interview with IANS on ThursdayResponding to a question on Indias strategy and the status about testing he said The current testing strategy is needbased and gives priority to individuals who are primarily at risk or have symptoms It is revised regularly according to the evolving situationu00f0u009du0097u009cu00f0u009du0097u0094u00f0u009du0097u00a1u00f0u009du0097u00a6 u00f0u009du0097u0098u00f0u009du0098u0085u00f0u009du0097u00b0u00f0u009du0097u00b9u00f0u009du0098u0082u00f0u009du0098u0080u00f0u009du0097u00b6u00f0u009du0098u0083u00f0u009du0097u00b2Testing 13 billion people for COVID19 is neither possible nor feasible Union Health Minister HarshVardhan drharshvardhan said in an exclusive interview with IANS on ThursdayDrHVoffice Covid_19 COVID MoHFW_INDIA pictwittercomFYaGdBqhMLmdash IANS Tweets ians_india May 28 2020Speaking about the details of testing data and capacity the Health Minister said As on May 27 our testing capacity is 160000 per day and we have done 3244884 tests till date On May 26 itself we have conducted 115229 tests If for a moment we talk of repeated testing of 13 billion population to curb the disease you would appreciate that this is not only a resource expensive exercise but also neither possible nor feasibleHe also asserted that from one laboratory at the National Institute of Virology NIV Pune in the first week of February 2020 the number of facilities in the country have increased to a total of 624 This includes 435 government labs and 189 NABLaccredited private laboratories involved in testing at presentVardhan said priority based and targeted testing will be helpful in detecting more cases of COVID19 and curbing the disease With our efforts at sustained and quality assured scaling up of the testing facilities I am sure we shall be better placed for maximum case detectionOn March 16 World Health Organisation Chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had said We have a simple message for all countries test test testIndia is constantly ramping up its testing infrastructure along with indigenous development validation and production of testing kits for RTPCR in order to have early and aggressive tracing of the infection and by validating TrueNatbased test for COVID19 and including alternative testing platforms like CBNAATGeneXpert and Abott HIV viral load testing machines The testing criteria has also been widened and evolved from time to time for instance testing migrant labourersCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest newsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever