New Delhi: Indian Council of Medical Research on Thursday stated that on May 18 India reached a landmark in its fight against COVID-19 by performing 100,000 tests in one day.
Starting from less than 100 tests per day just two months ago, a 1000 fold increase in just 60 days was made possible by dedicated teams from research institutions, medical colleges, testing laboratories, ministries, airlines and postal services working together.
In January 2020, India had only one laboratory testing for COVID-19, at the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Virology, Pune. Today there are 555 laboratories across the country, performing molecular tests for diagnosis of COVID-19 an unparalleled achievement in the history of the Indian health system.
ICMR also stated that faced with an unprecedented challenge, both in terms of technicalities and scale, Indian scientists had to innovate extensively, health workers had to train and learn on the job, administrators had to coordinate multiple actions round the clock amid the challenges of nationwide lockdown, and civil and defence aviation personnel had to fly at the shortest of notices.
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In order to ensure that the supplies reached every laboratory in a timely manner amid the nationwide lockdown, the services of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and their airline partners in government and private sector under ‘Mission Lifeline Udan’ were availed. They carried ICMR consignments of COVID 19 diagnostic material across the country. In the last 2 months, despite the lockdown, approximately 40 tonnes of testing material was transported in more than 150 flight operations, reaching out to the remotest corners of the nation. Doorstep deliveries were coordinated with several courier companies and state governments. As the lab network expanded, a need was felt to rope in India Post, which has country wide operations, to streamline the flow of supplies to the last mile.
