UP increasing testing centres for COVID-19: Adityanath

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday said the government is ramping up the number of COVID-19 testing centres in the state, including at the district level, as the coronavirus cases have increased rapidly over the past few days.

He said 308 COVID-19 cases have been found in the state as of now, of which 168 are linked to the Tablighi Jamaat gathering in Delhi last month.

The cases are spread over several districts such as Lucknow, Agra, Mathura, Kanpur and Allahabad, according to a bulletin released by the government.

In Uttar Pradesh, for the past 4-5 days, there has been a rise in the number of cases... Every step is being taken by the state government in association with the Centre to stop the spread of the infectious disease, Adityanath assured.

When the first coronavirus case was first reported in the state, he said, there was not a single testing laboratory in UP. "Today with the help of the Centre, 10 testing laboratories are successfully working."
"In UP, there are six divisional headquarters, where there are no government medical colleges. The state government will establish testing laboratories in these districts. The laboratories will be setup in Gonda, Mirzapur, Bareilly, Moradabad and Aligarh. In Varanasi division, there is a laboratory in BHU hospital, but we have started the work to establish a lab in a hospital there."