Karkala: NRI's wife found hanging at in-laws' house; murder suspected

New Delhi, May 3: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has crossed over one million RT-PCR tests for COVID-19 on Saturday evening marking a big landmark, ICMR officials said.

"We have tested about 10,40000 tests till Saturday evening. In a few days, we have increased our testing capacity. ICMR has been doing more than 70,000 tests in the last two consecutive days," he said.

On Saturday, ICMR released that a total of 976363 samples have been tested till date. From May 1 till evening on Saturday, 1,37,346 tests were done.

The top three states which are doing vigorous testing includes--Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. As on date, these three states have conducted more than one lakh test respectively.

However, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Delhi still need to ramp up their testing capacity.

ICMR has always emphasised that the confirmatory test for diagnosis of COVID-19 infection is RT-PCR test of the throat and/or nasal swab, which detects virus at an early stage. Recently, Dr GS Toteja, Additional Director General of ICMR had said that to contain coronavirus infection, RT-PCR tests must be continued vigorously as the principal diagnostic tests.

RT-PCR tests are now available in 310 government laboratories and 111 private set up across the country.

On Friday, the Centre informed that ICMR has ordered 21.35 lakh diagnostic kits. As on date, India has reported about 37,776 confirmed coronavirus cases and 1223 deaths.

Mangaluru, Apr 3: The Dakshina Kannada district administration’s decision to ban use of private vehicles, excluding permitted categories, from Friday for effective implementation of lockdown, began showing results since morning itself.

Mangaluru City Traffic Police and Dakshina Kannada district police erected several pickets at vantage places on arterial roads to check those moving without a valid reason. Several two-wheelers were seized during the checking while a few car drivers were let off with a strict warning.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic), M Manjunatha Shetty, who was supervising a picket at Hampankatta, said that movement of private vehicles has drastically reduced in the city.

Bengaluru, Mar 14: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Saturday suspended its proposed Akil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS) meeting scheduled to be held in the outskirts of the city, in the wake of the outbreak of Coronavirus in the state.

'In view of the seriousness of the pandemic COVID-19 and in the light of instructions and advisories thereof issues by the Union and the state governments, the Akil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha meeting scheduled in Bengaluru has been suspended', Sarakaryavah Suresh Joshi tweeted.

All Swayamsevaks should cooperate with the administrations to create awareness among the public and to face this successfully, he said.

It may be recalled that Karnataka State Government had ordered shut down of pubs, malls, theatres, and ban mass gatherings over the Coronavirus scare, on Friday.