Variations seen in rapid test kits, advise states not to use for 2 days: ICMR
Indian Council of Medical Research on Tuesday said that some variations were seen in rapid test kits and advised all stated to refrain from using rapid test kits for the next two days. Addressing the media, ICMR said, "States advised not to use rapid testing kits for two days. A lot of variations, kits will be tested and validated by on-ground teams and we will give advisory in the next 2 days."
ICMR said 4,49,810 samples have been tested so far and 35,852 samples were tested yesterday, of which 29,776 samples were tested in 201 Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) network labs and remaining 6,076 samples were tested in 86 private labs.
"It is a new disease, in the last 3 and half months science has progressed and developed PCR tests, 5 vaccines have gone into human trial phase out of 70 vaccine candidates. It has never happened before in case of any other disease," ICMR's R Gangakhedkar said.
The Health Ministry has issued detailed guidelines to all states that while the focus is on COVID-19, all other health services need to be provided, be it for dialysis, HIV or cancer treatments, etc.
Health Ministry Joint Secretary Luv Aggarwal said that 61 additional districts from 23 States/UT have not reported any fresh cases in last 14 days. "4 new districts have been included in the list-Latur, Osmanabad, Hingoli & Washim in Maharashtra."
He further informed that till now, there are 18,601 coronavirus positive cases in the country. "So far, 3252 people have recovered including 705 people who recovered yesterday. This takes our recovery percentage to 17.48%."
Meanwhile, Chairman of Empowered Group 4, tasked with augmenting human resources and capacity building for COVID-19, informed of the online database of 'Corona Warriors'. He said that as of now, 1.24 crore 'Corona Warriors' are available. He said, "http://covidwarriors.gov.in has been created as a master database of healthcare professionals and volunteers. Till now, details of 1.24 crore human resources of various kinds have been added to it."
He further said the details of corona warriors in 20 categories and 49 sub-categories, who can contribute to COVID19 management efforts, are available to states and union territories on the portal.
