India's Doubling Rate for COVID-19 at 4.1 Days: Health Ministry

India's Doubling Rate for COVID-19 at 4.1 Days: Health Ministry

India's rate of COVID-19 cases doubling in 4.1 days as of April 5.

At the daily press briefing for coronavirus updates, the joint secretary of Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Lav Agarwal, spoke about doubling of infection rates in India. India's current doubling rate is 4.1 days. Prior to the Tablighi Jamaat surveillance and contact tracing, it was 7.4 days.

All those eligible for Ayushman Bharat will get free coronavirus testing and treatment in all government and private labs and hospitals, he added.

India added 472 new cases in 24 hours and 11 additional deaths linked to the coronavirus outbreak in the country. He also said that 66,000 self help group members from 14,500 SHG groups in 24 states covering 399 districts have started production of face masks.

Additionally, he spoke about deploying rapid antibody tests by Wednesday in areas that have been identified as hotspots or areas that have reported many cases of COVID-19.

Earlier in the day Indian Council of Medical Research or ICMR had issued specific guidelines on these tests.

Cases of Influenza Like Illness to be monitored in health facilities. Any surge in cases to be monitored & brought to the notice of Surveillance Officer / CMO for additional investigation. All cases of ILIs will be asked to stay in home quarantine for 14 days.

Antibody tests defer from the gold standard TCR tests which are used for diagnosis. Antibody test are used to indicate if the virus was ever present in a body. It's a useful test to see how far the virus has spread in the community.

Also Read: COVID-19: What Is Antibody Test & How Is It Different From PCR?