Bhubaneswar: In yet another achievement in the fight again coronavirus, Odisha tested over 50,000 swab samples till Wednesday, said National Health Mission (NHM) state Director Shalini Pandit here on Thursday.
Briefing media persons, she said while the state currently has COVID-19 testing capacity of over 3,000 per day, the total number of tests touched 50,514 till Wednesday. The government is planning to set up 11 more laboratories at various places across the state to speed up the testing, she added.
The tests per million population in Odisha stood at 1155 as against 983 in the entire country as on May 7, the NHM Director informed.
Of the total tests so far conducted in the state, over 26,000 tests have been done at ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC). Director of RMRC Dr Sanghamitra Pati informed that 26,328 tests were conducted at RMRC till Wednesday and 78 % of the state’s total positive cases detected at the centre.
“Testing is the major factor in the fight against COVID-19. We team Odisha are doing good in this direction. ICMR Director and the state government have congratulated RMRC for the feat,” Pati added.
