Andhra Pradesh crosses million-mark in COVID-19 testing

Andhra Pradesh government on Sunday said that it has conducted over one million COVID-19 tests in the state till date to combat the widespread illness.

A total of 78 laboratories including government, private, and TrueNat labs along with dedicated hospitals for treating COVID patients are conducting the tests.

"Andhra Pradesh has crossed one million COVID-19 tests, logging 10,17,123 tests as on Sunday morning. With extensive testing and timely treatment, the mortality rate stands at 1.24 per cent which is much lower than the national average of 2.86 per cent," the Andhra Chief Minster's Office stated in a release.

"While it took 59 days to complete the first one lakh COVID-19 tests, the state has consistently increased the testing capacity and completed the last three lakh tests in just 12 days," the release added.

The state government also said that the tests per million population in Andhra Pradesh have reached 19,047 against the national average of 6,878 tests per million.

The Andhra government has adopted a three-pronged strategy of tracing, testing, and treatment to contain the spread and intensity of COVID-19 and the government is also providing financial assistance of Rs 2,000 to the patients discharged from hospital, the release added.

Andhra Pradesh has reported 998 new COVID-19 cases and 14 deaths in the last 24 hours.

The total number of coronavirus cases in the state has now reached 18,697. Out of the total number of cases 10,043 cases are active. A total of 391 persons were discharged, taking the total discharged count to 8,422.

( With inputs from ANI )