India can conduct 1.25 lakh COVID-19 tests a day: ICMR

New Delhi, May 02: The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) deputy director Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar on Saturday said the country has evolved a strong Covid-19 testing regime in the last three months and it is now in a position to conduct 1.25 lakh tests a day.

He said India has evolved a strong COVID-19 testing regime over the last three months. The country was now in a position to ramp up tests up to 1.25 lakh a day in the government sector.

"We have expanded the criteria of testing as much as we could. After starting from scratch three months back, the last test we have done was 72,000 today.

This is a significantly high number. We are in a position to ramp up testing up to 1.25 lakh a day," he added.

The interaction was an initiative by the state Health Department to explain the technical aspects of the widely- debated COVID-19 testing.

A high-level team of the state led by Health Minister K K Shailaja, Health Secretary Rajan Khobragade, Dr B Ekbal, who heads the expert panel that advises the government on prevention of the coronavirus and National Health Mission state director, Dr Rathan U Kelkar among others participated.

ICMR also lauded the containment strategy and the robust public healthcare system of Kerala and said it would "continue referring to the Kerala model" for testing and containment strategies. Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar, chief of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at ICMR, said.

He was responding to queries from mediapersons at an online interaction, which was streamed live on Facebook by Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Kerala, here.

"Kerala is offering one of the best containment strategies and it is unparalleled. So we will continue to refer to Kerala Model as far as testing and containment strategies are concerned,"Gangakhedkar said.