COVID-19 tests in India cross 2-crore mark: ICMR

With 3,81,027 samples tested in the last 24 hours, the number of Test Per Million (TPM) has increased to 14,640, the health ministry said in a statement.

PTI

August 03, 2020 / 19:59 IST

India has carried out over two crore tests for detection of COVID-19 pursuant to the key strategy of "test aggressively, track efficiently and isolate and treat promptly", the government said on Monday, hailing the milestone as a "landmark achievement".

A cumulative total of 2,02,02,858 samples have been tested up to August 2 with 3,81,027 samples being tested on Sunday, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) data.

With 3,81,027 samples tested in the last 24 hours, the number of Test Per Million (TPM) has increased to 14,640, the health ministry said in a statement.

While the country's TPM has demonstrated a steady upward trend indicating the growing testing network, 24 states and Union Territories have reported higher testing per million than the national average.

The 24 states and UTs having a TPM higher than the national average includes Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka and Punjab.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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