Maharashtra has conducted 30,766 tests till Thursday

According to official information on Covid-19 tests, Maharashtra conducted 30,766 tests, home quarantined 36,533 persons, and placed 4,731 persons in institutional

According to official information on Covid-19 tests, Maharashtra conducted 30,766 tests, home quarantined 36,533 persons, and placed 4,731 persons in institutional quarantine till Thursday. Among these, 28,865 persons tested negative, 1,364 persons tested positive, and 125 persons have been cured. For Mumbai alone, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has conducted 15,500 tests so far.

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As of Monday, Mumbai had conducted 12,000 odd tests, surpassing figures for tests done in many other Indian states, such as Kerala which conducted 10,716 tests, Delhi which conducted 6,567 tests, and Tamil Nadu which conducted 5,015 tests. Municipal Commissioner Praveen Pardeshi told HT on Tuesday, “We are aggressively testing and need to continue to do so, for early detection of Covid-19 cases. Testing is happening even in the fever clinics at a war footing.” Presently, Mumbai sees 884 test per million, much more than Kerala, that sees approximately 319 cases per million, Tamil Nadu that sees 150 cases per million, and Delhi, that sees 196 cases per million, according to BMC data on April 6. A senior civic official said, “Rigorous testing is the only way forward.”

There are 13 laboratories in Mumbai which conduct Covid-19 tests, of these eight are private laboratories and five are civic-owned. While presently, Mumbai’s capacity is to conduct 2,000 tests per day in these 13 laboratories, the capacity is likely to be scaled up to 3,000 tests per day by next week, as the civic body plans to open two new testing laboratories at Haffkine near KEM in Parel, and at Sion Hospital respectively.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani, in charge of BMC’s health department, said, “Within the next seven to 15 days, both these laboratories will become functional, and Mumbai will have total testing capacity of 3,000 tests per day. While the one at Haffkine is almost ready, the one at Sion will take around 15 days, with setting up equipment, and making lab technicians available.”

To scale its testing capacity further, BMC has planned to purchase rapid testing kits as well.

Rapid tests work differently from swab tests that are being done in a laboratory at present. Rapid tests take a blood sample and produce results within 15 minutes, versus a swab test, which in Mumbai has a cycle of 12 hours before results are concluded.

Pardeshi said on Tuesday, “Rapid tests are going to be very useful in eliminating persons who are not susceptible to Covid-19, and hence reducing the burden on laboratories. These will be used on our frontline staff on priority, to determine who is safe to do fieldwork and who is not.”