In view of the Covid cases rising by the day, the State Government on Friday decided to increase the number of per-day tests to 20,000 from August.
Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) Director Ajay Parida said this to the media after attending a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy here.
Among 20,000 tests, 8,000 would be RT-PCR tests and the remaining 12,000 would be antigen tests, he said.
Currently, all the districts have more than 3,000 antigen kits each. As many firms are manufacturing the kits in India, the State may not face difficulty in procuring more kits to conduct Covid tests.
Parida claimed that the infection scenario in Ganjam, Khordha, Cuttack and Jajpur is stable and the situation may improve in August. He said per-day rate of positive cases compared to tests is on the decline in the State now.
“If the State Government wants, the Covid-19 tests can be done in all private laboratories,” Parida said.
He denied the apprehension of community transmission in Odisha.
The State conducted the highest single-day number of 14,335 tests in the last 24 hours, out of which 1,499 came positive.
