A scientist presents an antibody test to use with a blood sample for the coronavirus at a laboratory.
India has so far done testing of over 5,00,542 samples for the suspected coronavirus exposure out of which 21,797 people have tested positive for COVID-19 by 9 am on Thursday, said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India's leading medical research lab. The tests have been done from 4,85,172 individuals. Meanwhile, out of them, just 21,797 samples have been confirmed positive as Thursday morning, said the ICMR.
However, after discrepancies surfaced in over 95% rapid testing results in Rajasthan in the past few days, the ICMR has asked states to pause rapid testing for sometime concerning that kits from China may be faulty. On Thursday, coronavirus confirmed cases in India crossed 21,000-mark to 21,393 including 681 deaths and 4,258 have recovered, according to health ministry's figures released today. In the last 24 hours, the country saw 1,400 new cases of the novel coronavirus.
Till Wednesday evening, confirmed cases tally in India were at 20,471 including 652 deaths while 3,960 have recovered as per data released by the Ministry of Heatlh. The nation is under 19-day extended lockdown that will remain in place till May after PM Modi on April 14 in a televised address to the nation announced it saying it was required to continue the fight against coronavirus.
Maharashtra continues to remain the worst affected state. Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh too have been badly hit.
(With inputs from IANS)
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