Andhra Pradesh on Sunday reached a significant milestone as the number of Covid-19 tests crossed one crore. The health officials said the state has so far tested 1,00,17,126 samples of which 8,67,683 tested positive and 91,49,443 negative. The milestone was crossed with 54,710 new tests during the last 24 hours. According to officials, 52,38,479 were RT-PCR tests, 7,41,711 truenat tests and 40,36,936 rapid tests.
Andhra Pradesh stands first among big states in India with 1,87,587 tests per million population. The national average is 98,004 per million. The state’s positivity rate stands at 8.66 per cent and recovery rate at 98.23 per cent. With extensive testing and timely treatment, the mortality rate stands at 0.81 per cent which is lower than the national average of 1.46 per cent. The state government worked as per an action plan to contain the spread of Covid-19 and effectively utilized the services of village volunteers for community surveillance and monitoring health conditions.
Starting with zero testing facilities, the state government in no time ramped its health infrastructure and established 150 testing laboratories including government, private, and Truenat labs by June along with dedicated hospitals for treating Covid patients. The first lab for Covid-19 was established on March 7 and the numbers were increased to 150 labs.
Apart from 15 testing facility centres, Covid-19 tests are being conducted in four private labs, 44 VRDL labs, 90 Truenat labs, 6CBNAT, 5NACO and 5 CLIA labs. Officials said the state followed a decentralised model of sample collection centres. About 1,519 facilities acted as the sample collection centres ranging from teaching hospitals to primary health centres. Apart from centres, Mobile RRT teams covered the nook and corner of the state prioritising containment zones.
To provide better access to citizens for testing, 122 State-owned VERA and APSRTC buses were set up as mobile units for sample collection. These centres were equipped with all required COVID facilities with adequate kits and disposable waste bins and cold boxes to preserve the samples collected.
They were also equipped with computers and hardware required to digitize the data of samples collected in a real-time basis to MSS portal and citizens receive acknowledgement soon after the sample is collected and report is also sent to their registered mobile immediately after the sample is processed.
The huge lab infrastructure has been created which will benefit the state post-Covid also to fight all viral diseases. A campaign was held to create awareness of mask-wearing. Meanwhile, the state command control room said during the last 24 hours the state reported 620 new cases, taking the tally to 8,67,683. The period saw seven more fatalities, pushing the death toll to 6,988. As many as 3,787 people recovered during the last 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 8,52,298.
-IANS