Where Does India Stand In Testing — Prof K Nageshwar

India is reporting over 80,000 cases per day. Still, Prof. Ashish Jha, Director of Harvard Global Health Institute, estimates that our country is missing 85 percent of cases undetected. The primary reason is inadequate testing. Indeed, India has significantly ramped up its testing capacity.

India is now testing a million people every day. The United States is testing 6,70,000 cases per day from a daily peak of nine lakh tests. But, this is only one part of the story. There is another way of interpreting the statistics.

The United States has conducted 83 million tests so far, with India’s tally remaining 43 million. Remember, India has a population four times higher than the United States. China has conducted 90 million tests so far. But, Chinese claims are often doubted globally.

The United States is a rich and powerful nation. How can we compare India with the world’s mightiest country? The question is quite convincing if we do not know the comparative testing statistics from across the globe.

Brazil, certainly not more developed than India, is conducting 67000 tests per million population while India’s corresponding figure is much less at 31000 only. Of course, Chinese testing is 63,000 per million, which is not counted for analysis due to its low credibility.

The United States and Russia conducted over 2.5 lakh tests per million population so far. India has to significantly enhance its testing capacity due to the higher population and positivity rate. The positivity rate refers to the total number of positive cases out of total tests conducted.

Epidemiologists believe that a higher positivity rate in a population indicates a greater spread of infection, demanding more tests to isolate the affected people to contain the Pandemic. Testing is universally accepted as the first step in any effective containment strategy.

South Korea has a positivity rate of less than one percent. Similarly, Serbia has a positivity rate little over 3 percent, while it is 8.6 percent in India. The positivity rate in India is now reduced to less than 8 percent.

However, there are countries like Ecuador, which has a positivity rate of 34 percent. But, Should we compare with such nations? India is certainly not inferior to countries like Serbia. India’s potential is certainly higher than in South Korea.

Therefore, India has to sill ramp up testing so that the positivity rate would further come down. Epidemiologists estimate that a nation would have to report a positivity rate of less than 5 percent if it has to make noticeable progress in the fight against the Pandemic.

By – Prof K Nageshwar

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