:Maharashtrahealth officials on Wednesday directed all districts and local authorities to step up testing following the emergence of the new Omicron variant of Covid with the setting a target of 1 lakh tests a day henceforth.
Covid testing had gone down in some parts of the state in the past two weeks. Last week, the Union Health ministry directed nine districts in the state to scale up the daily Average testing, which had fallen below the World Health Organisation (WHO) norms of 140 tests per day per million Population for the week ending on November 22.
Akola, Amravati, Buldhana, Dhule, Gondia, Hingoli, Nandurbar, Washim and Yavatmal were then listed as the districts conducting average tests per million below the WHO norms. These districts, however, registered an improved collection of samples this week.
The Centre has also cited the onset of winter, increased pollution in some states, prevalence of influenza like illness/Severe Acute Respiratory Infections and respiratory distress symptoms as reasons for close monitoring, stepped up testing and early identification of the hotspots. The state has also issued guidelines on these to all districts.