COVID-19: Uttar Pradesh becomes first state to conduct 1 crore tests

Lucknow, Oct 01: Uttar Pradesh has become the first state in the country to conduct 1 crore COVID-19 tests, with 1.61 lakh tests on Wednesday.

The total number of tests conducted in the state stands at 1,00,98,896 so far. Nearly 42 per cent of these tests were done through the RT-PCR method.

"Recently, we are witnessing a continuous reduction in positivity rate and cases of new infection. In a period of two weeks, the number of active cases has gone down by almost 25 per cent", said State additional chief secretary for health Amit Mohan Prasad.

"We are making preparations to double the number of RT-PCR tests also. A proper and better infrastructure and increasing the number of labs are needed for this and we have already started looking for that. Through testing on a very large scale, we have been able to keep the positivity rate below 5 per cent in the state."

Earlier, the state government reduced the charge for conducting COVID-19 test to Rs 1,600 from Rs 2,500 by all labs including those privately owned.

Uttar Pradesh 395K COVID-19 positive cases and 5,715 deaths due to the novel coronavirus till now, an official said.

Meanwhile, India's COVID-19 tally crosses 63-lakh mark with a spike of 86,821 new cases and 1,181 deaths reported in the last 24 hours. Total case tally stands at 63,12,585 including 9,40,705 active cases, 52,73,202 cured/discharged/migrated and 98,678 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.