New Delhi: Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) today said as many as 2,76,94,416 samples were tested for Covid till Thursday.
It also said that as many as 8,48,278 samples were tested on Thursday (13 August) alone. Out of total Covid-19 tests being conducted every day across the country, about 25-30% tests comprise of rapid antigen tests, informed the Union Health Ministry recently.
“When we started, antigen tests comprised only 5-6 per cent of the total tests being conducted in a single, but this proportion is consistently rising. Today, total antigen tests are nearly between 25-30 per cent tests of the total number of covid19 tests done so far,” said ICMR Director-General Dr Balram Bhargava while addressing media.
Bhargava said that rapid antigen detection test has a very high specificity, i.e., its ability to detect true negative from 99.3 to 100 per cent. However, it has moderate sensitivity between 55 to 85 per cent.