Health Minister Harsh Vardhan launches India's 1st mobile COVID testing lab

New Delhi: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday launched the country's first mobile Covid testing lab, which has capability of testing for TB and HIV also.

This lab has been readied in 8 days and 50 more such vans are being built, he said.

The Minister also said that 62,49,668 tests have been done till date and in past 24 hour, 1,65,412 tests were conducted. He said that there are 953 labs - 699 government and 254 private.

"We are testing 3 lakh per day, he said.

The country witnessed yet another single-day highest spike of almost 13,000 Covid-19 cases taking the total tally to 3.66 lakh. According to the ministry, 12,881 fresh cases were recorded in the last 24 hours taking the total tally to 3,66,946 cases -- the seventh consecutive day showing an increase of over 10,000 cases.

With 334 deaths in the last 24 hours, a total of 12,237 people have succumbed to the deadly disease since the first case was reported on January 30, the Health Ministry data said.

For the 10th consecutive day, the number of recoveries (194,324) remained higher than the active cases (160,384). The recovery rate has also crossed the 50 per cent mark