ICMR recommends testing of symptomatic coronavirus cases in hotspots

The testing strategy in the country has been extended to include all cases with symptoms of COVID-19 in the identified hotspots, said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Friday.

"The testing strategy has been extended further to include all symptomatic cases in hotspot areas," said Manoj Murhekar of the ICMR said at the daily press briefing here.

The ICMR official also said that a total of 213 testing laboratories for the infection were present in the country including 146 government and 67 private labs.

Speaking further about the total number of tests conducted in the country, Murhekar said: "A total of 1,44,910 samples were tested till Thursday night, collected from 1,30,792 suspected patients, out of which 5,705 were positive. Yesterday alone 16,002 tests were conducted, which is a substantial increase over the last few days."

Punya Salila Srivastava, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Dammu Ravi, AS and Coordinator -- COVID-19, MEA, Lav Agrawal, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), and an official from the PIB were also present at the press briefing.

At the briefing, the PIB official said that under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana Scheme, Rs 280 crore has been withdrawn by 1.37 lakh employees from the EPFO funds.

With 896 COVID-19 cases reported in the country in the last 24 hours, India's total number of coronavirus positive cases rose to 6,761 on Friday, according to the website of Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Out of these 6039 are active cases, 516 have been cured and discharged or migrated, and 206 deaths have been reported so far. The country witnessed the highest one day increase with 896 cases.