Telangana has ramped up its testing facilities and is taking other measures to check the spread of COVID-19, state Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar said said after a video conference held by Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba on Saturday.
"Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar informed that the state has ramped up testing facilities and is working on enforcing surveillance in containment zones after the visit of the central team to the state," an official release said in Hyderabad.
It said issues pertaining to strict enforcement of lockdown measures in containment zones, increasing testing capacities and utilising technology for tracing, testing and other measures were discussed in the video conference.
The cabinet secretary underlined that the focus should be on keeping the number of deaths as low as possible, among others, according to the release.
Meanwhile, Telangana's tally mounted to 22,312 on Saturday with 1,850 people testing positive during a 24-hour period, health officials said.
For a second consecutive day, Telangana reported over 1,800 coronavirus cases. With a record single-day spike in cases, the state on Friday crossed 20,000 mark, overtaking both Rajasthan and West Bengal in terms of total number of infections so far.
Telangana also reported five deaths on Saturday, taking the death toll to 288. Officials said the cumulative figure of recoveries mounted to 11,537. A total of 10,487 people are undergoing treatment in hospitals or at home.
According to the health department, 6,427 samples were tested during the 24-hour period. This is the highest number of tests to be conducted in a single day. With this the state has so far conducted over 1.10 lakh tests.
Speaking to reporters earlier on Saturday, Director of Public Health and Family Welfare, G Srinivas Rao said that currently 13 laboratories were conducting 6,500 tests daily while five more laboratories would start conducting tests soon.
The official also said that 13 private laboratories were issued notices for discrepancies in testing data. He said the private labs had the capacity to conduct 8,000 tests every day and some of them were doing more tests than their capacity, which could have led to discrepancies.
The official said the COVID-19 patients were undergoing treatment in Gandhi Hospital, Fever Hospital, King Koti Hospital and Chest Hospital, all in Hyderabad. Critical patients were being treated in Gandhi Hospital.
The hospitals have 2,501 beds and of them 1,034 were occupied. As many as 6,556 people who tested positive were in home isolation and they were being treated through telemedicine as of Saturday morning, he said.