Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has decided to conduct 50,000 COVID-19 tests from Monday.
According to official sources, two private laboratories have been roped in to ramp up the RT-PCR tests to 20,000 a day. Rapid antigen kits will be used for testing another 30,000 samples.
Five more private labs will be added in the second phases, Additional Chief Secretary (Health) P K Mohapatra told The New Indian Express.
On Friday, Chief Secretary Suresh Mahapatra had directed Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation to enhance the testing target to 3000 a day in the city area.
Also Read: COVID-19 Testing, Tracking & Isolation To Be Ramped Up In Bhubaneswar
The state has been reporting over 3000 new cases for the last two days. While 3144 people tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours, 3108 had contracted the infection on Thursday.
Also Read: Odisha Logs Over 3000 New COVID-19 Cases, Four More Fatalities
The test positivity rate has shot up close to 10 per cent within a month. It was 6.3 per cent on October 7, 2020, the national daily said.
