'Karnataka conducting 297 tests per day per million population'

Bengaluru: Karnataka was conducting 297 tests per day per million people, which is more than double the World Health Organisations’ recommendation, state Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar said on Friday. He also claimed that Karnataka was among the top 10 states and union territories in conducting tests.

His statement comes against the backdrop of allegations levelled by the Congress against the government over its ‘failure’ to curb coronavirus spread in the state.

In a tweet, the minister said, “WHO recommends 140 tests/day/million population. Karnataka is conducting 297 tests/day/million & is among top 10 states/UTs conducting 140 tests or more.”

” So far, more than 9.25 lakh tests have been conducted and all of them are Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests that provide accurate results, “he added.

The state government said it has enhanced the capacity substantially to conduct 25,000 tests a day. On Thursday alone, 23,451 tests were conducted in the state of which 4,169 were found positive for the virus.