Bhubaneswar: The performance of Odisha in conducting Covid-19 test is better than the national average, National Health Mission (NHM) managing director (MD) Shalini Pandit said here Thursday.
Pandit said against the national average of 953 tests being conducted per ten lakh people, in Odisha 1155 tests are conducted per every ten lakh people.
She said the state has conducted a record 50,514 tests till Wednesday and efforts are on to increase the number in the coming days.
Pandit said two months back only ten tests were being conducted per day in the only laboratory at RMRC Bhubaneswar. It was increased to 250 per day a month back and further increased to 1,000 tests per day fifteen days back.
But today, more than 3,000 tests could be done in eight laboratories set up in different parts of the state. She said the government has planned to set up 11 more laboratories in various places of the state including at Bolangir, Balasore, Kalahandi, Koraput and Baripada to conduct more tests.
The NHM MD said the main objective of the test is to detect more positive cases and to provide them treatment to contain the further spread of the virus.
She said so far 206 Covid positive cases have been identified in 18 districts of the state.
RMRC director Sanghamitra Pati said out of the total 50,514 tests conducted in Odisha 26328 tests were done in RMRC and three fourth of the total positive cases were detected in RMRC.
She said the centre had conducted a record 1916 tests in a single day—Wednesday—and thanked the scientists, researchers and the laboratory technicians for the great achievement.