Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan launches India's first mobile laboratory for COVID-19 testing

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday launched India's first mobile laboratory for COVID-19 testing in rural and inaccessible areas of India.

"To ensure testing facilities in far-flung areas, such innovations have been developed in the interior, inaccessible parts of the country," said Union Health Minister.

In the wave of Atma Nirbhar Bharat, Ministry of Science and Technology and Andhra Pradesh Med-tech Zone have collaborated to address the shortage of critical healthcare technologies in India and move progressively towards a stage of self-sufficiency.

Explaining the scope of this lab, Vardhan said, "It has the capability to perform 25 RT-PCR tests per day, 300 ELISA tests per day and additional tests for TB, HIV as per CGHS rates."

"We had started the fight against COVID with one laboratory in February. Today, we have 953 laboratories across the country. Out of these 953, around 699 are government labs," he added.

India has witnessed the highest single-day increase of 12,881 COVID-19 cases reported in the last 24 hours and the cumulative count for the cases have surged t0 3,66,946 on Thursday.