India’s Coronavirus (COVID-19) tally is approaching 3 million after the country reported a spike of 69,878 fresh cases and 945 casualties today, i.e., Saturday, August 22, 2020.
As per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), the total number of cases have surged to 29,75,701 and the casualties rose to 55,974. The country also reported 63,631 recoveries in a single day, taking the tally of total recovered cases to 22,22,577. The number of active cases currently constitute 23.82% of total cases, while the casualty rate stands at 1.89%. Recovery rate of the country is at 74.30%.
Besides, scientists believe that a low-cost saliva-based COVID-19 diagnosis will enable people to collect their own samples with minimal discomfort, without invasive nasal or throat swabs. It offers an improvement over standard nasopharyngeal swab methods because people can collect their own by spitting into a sterile tube and mailing it to a lab for processing.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has already given an approval for saliva-based testing to Yale School of Public Health Emergency. This method is yet to be introduced in India.
Talking about the saliva-based testing, Senior Associate Professor at Chennai’s L&T Microbiology Research Centre – A.R. Anand said, “It is also unique because it does not require a separate nucleic acid (RNA) extraction step. This is significant because the extraction kits used for this step, in other tests have been prone to shortages in the past.”
Separately, according to another study published in Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR’s) Indian Journal of Medical Research, gargled water samples may be another viable alternative to swabs for detecting COVID-19, enabling easy self-collection and removing the need for trained healthcare workers for sample collection.
Presently, there are 2 ways of testing COVID-19. Both use swabs from the nose and the throat. The RT-PCR test, which can take hours or even days, detects genetic material of the virus using a lab technique called polymerase chain reaction. The second diagnostic test, the antigen COVID-19 test, detects certain proteins in the virus. An antigen test can also produce results in minutes.
Most false negative results in the RT-PCR test today are due to improper sampling from the nasopharyngeal area, which is also uncomfortable for the person being tested. The saliva-based test would be an easier way of testing COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra continues to be the worst hit State with 6,57,450 cases and 21,698 casualties. It reported 14,161 fresh cases and 339 casualties today. Tamil Nadu, the second most affected State reported 5,995 fresh cases and 101 casualties, taking the total tally of cases to 3,67,430 and casualties to 6,340. Andhra Pradesh is the third most hit State. With 9,544 fresh cases and 91 casualties, the total number of cases in the State rose to 3,34,940 and there have been 3,092 casualties.
In other developments, Union Home Secretary – Ajay Bhalla has written to all Chief Secretaries of all States, asking them to ensure that there are no restrictions on Inter-State & Intra-State movement of persons and goods. His letter states that any such restriction amounts to a violation of guidelines issued by Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
The Former Chief Minister of Jharkhand – Shibu Soren and his wife have tested positive for COVID-19. The current Chief Minister of Jharkhand – Hemant Soren will undergo a test on Monday, August 24, 2020.
The entire administration of the King George Medical College (KGMU) in Lucknow has tested positive for COVID-19.
