How Andhra Pradesh is conducting the highest number of COVID-19 tests per million population

Andhra Pradesh is now the state with the highest number of COVID-19 tests conducted per million population.

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The south Indian state, with 961 tests conducted per 10 lakh people, has surpassed Rajasthan’s average of 877 tests.

With 80 new cases reported on Thursday morning, AP’s COVID-19 tally is at 893 now.

48034 is the total number of tests conducted in the state till Wednesday night, a feat achieved excluding the rapid test antibody kits imported from South Korea, the state health officials stated.

Also Read: Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases

However, in absolute numbers, Maharashtra did 82304, Rajasthan 60420, and Tamil Nadu 59023 tests, a countrywide test figures chart accessed by DH from AP government shows. Delhi, with 28309 tests done, has the conducted average of 1490 tests per million.

While most of the states are using the RT-PCR procedure, “the gold standard” in COVID-19 tests, Andhra Pradesh government is also using around 240 TrueNat machines with it, normally used for Tuberculosis testing.

While 5,757 tests were conducted on Tuesday, on Wednesday it was 6,520.

“Out of the over 48,000 samples tested, 32 thousand are RT-PCR and 16000 are TrueNat based,” said Jawahar Reddy, AP’s special chief secretary (health).

Nevertheless, since RT-PCR is the only confirmatory test approved by ICMR, TrueNat tested positive samples are also sent for RT-PCR for validation, the official said.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jaganmohan Reddy had, earlier this month, unveiled ICMR approved TrueNat test cartridges costing Rs 1,200 each. Officials claimed these kits can reveal results in an hour, “against three days and Rs 4500 taken for RT-PCR.”

These cartridges are PCR – Polymerase Chain Reaction based, into which nasal or throat swab samples are taken and assessment is carried utilizing the existing TrueNat Tuberculosis test machines.

The Visakhapatnam based Andhra Pradesh MedTech Zone is manufacturing around 2000 such cartridges per day, with plans of scaling up production.

AP has plans to further scale-up the daily test numbers. “We are testing over 6000 samples daily now, the highest in the country. So many tests are so that no COVID-19 positive person misses the radar and becomes a super spreader like the case was in South Korea or the doctor case in our own Kurnool,” said Reddy.

“Our mantra is “Test-Test-Test,” with the robust tracing of suspects and treatment of the patients,” said Reddy.

Stating that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had on Wednesday evening given a go-ahead for the South Korean rapid testing kits, the health secretary said they would employ the antibody-based testing kits for large scale community testing.

“It is not a definitive test method but is useful for community surveillance.”

Of the 14,423 tests conducted using the rapid testing kits, 11,543 were in the state’s Red Zones and 30 were detected as positive. Those samples are being sent for PCR tests confirmation, said, officials.

A third round of health survey, covering 1.43 crore households out of total 1.47 crore households in the state had identified 32,349 people for COVID-19 tests.

The state is trying to scale up the daily testing capacity to 17,500 tests, in the coming days.

Tests are conducted at the nine virus research diagnostic labs set up in the past four weeks, with the first one at SVIMS Tirupati beginning with 90 samples a day. Three more labs are expected to be operational soon.