The Odisha government onThursday set a target of conducting at least 3,000 coronavirus tests daily by April end, a minister said here.Though the state is currently conducting 2,000 tests every day, arrangements are being made to set up testing labs in four new state-run medical colleges at Bolangir, Balasore, Baripada and Koraput," Panchayati Raj Minister Pratap Jena said after a meeting of the group of ministers (GOP) here.This apart, Covid-19 testing will also be conducted at the Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) in Bhubaneswar."It has also been decided to increase the testing capacity of the laboratory at the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), Bhubaneswar, from 200 to 450 per day," the minister added.A whopping 2,209 RT-PCR tests were conducted in the last 24 hours in the state taking the tally of cumulative tests to 15,984, an official at the health and family welfare department said.However, no rapid antibody tests were conducted in the state as the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had asked to temporarily stop testing with rapid testing kits owing to reports of discrepancies in test results elsewhere.So far, the state has reported 89 positive cases, out of which 55 are active, 33 have been cured and one person from Bhubaneswar died of the disease.
