New Delhi: Term it as a formula to fix the discrepancies in COVID-19 data released by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW's), the former has decided to avoid inclusion of COVID-19 active case figures in daily bulletin.
Accordingly, in its Tuesday's update, ICMR has mentioned only the total number of samples that have been tested by the laboratories.
Interestingly, laboratories across India provide positive case data directly to ICMR and not to MoHFW.
An official in the ICMR told ETV Bharat that the department has been asked not to give positive cases data.
"ICMR will not give COVID-19 positive cases data any more. Only data on the total number of samples tested will be provided," said the official on condition of anonymity.
In a statement issued on Tuesday night, the ICMR has only mentioned that a total of 4,62,621 samples from 4,47,812 individuals have been tested as of 9 p.m. of April 21, 2020.
"Today, on 21 April 2020, till 9 p.m. 26,943 samples have been reported," said the official. The statement did not mention about active cases number.
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Normally, when ICMR issue its COVID-19 statement, they used to mention the existing number of active COVID 19 cases.
And almost every day, there was a difference in the active case numbers released by ICMR and MoHFW.
On an earlier occasion, Lav Agarwal, Health Ministry's official spokesperson on COVID-19 has reportedly said that it takes time for the Health Ministry to upload the data on its portal.
"The data released by ICMR and Health Ministry were not different...the reason of a minor difference was that it takes time for the Health Ministry to upload the data on its portal," Aggrawal has earlier said.
For example, on April 19, the MoHFW data said that India has a total number of 15,712 active cases whereas ICMR data has said about the presence of 17,615 active COVID-19 positive cases on the same day.
At present, India has 201 ICMR-affiliated and 86 private labs for COVID-19 testing.
Meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry has launched COVID India Seva on Twitter to address questions on COVID-19 pandemic.
Officials said that the initiative is aimed at enabling transparent e-governance delivery in real-time and answer citizen query swiftly.
"People can put their questions to @CovidIndiaSeva to get a quick response on COVID-19," officials said.
