Jharkhand government has tested nearly 6 per cent of the state’s population for the coronavirus in the past six months, notching up a testing rate higher than the national average of around 5 per cent, figures with the Union ministry of health and family welfare reveal.

Jharkhand, till date, has tested 18.86 lakh people for Covid-19, which is around 5.9 per cent of the state’s total population of 3.29 crore, as per the 2011 census. As per figures with the health ministry, around 6.62 crore people have been tested for the virus across the country, which is around 5 per cent of the country’s population of 130 crore.

Officials from the Jharkhand National Health Mission (NHM) on Wednesday said that the state’s cumulative tests per million (TPM) was also higher than the national figure because of intensified Covid testing drives.

“Our cumulative TPM is 50,028, while the national TPM is 49,209,” said the state NHM director, Dr Ravi Shankar Shukla. “We are way ahead of the World Health Organisation’s target of conducting 140 tests per million per day,” he added.

As per figures with the NHM, Jharkhand’s TPM on Tuesday was 1,303, while that of India was 708. Despite achieving a higher testing rate than the rest of the country, Jharkhand’s positivity rate for the tests conducted was much lower than the national average, officials said.

“Higher testing rate will allow the government to find more cases and thereby check the spread of the virus through asymptomatic carriers,” said Dr Ajay Singh, coordinator of Indian Medical Association’s (IMA) Jharkhand chapter.

India’s positivity rate, as per the health ministry, was 8.51 per cent and Jharkhand’s positivity rate was 3.29 per cent. The figures, officials said, indicated that although cases of infection increased in Jharkhand, the percentage of people testing positive among the ones tested every day was lower than the national average.

As per government data, as many as 73,948 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in Jharkhand so far. At least 60,327 of these patients have recovered, while 12,976 of them are still battling the virus. The virus has claimed the lives of 645 people across the state so far.

“Our recovery rate is also higher than the national average, and the mortality rate is lower. As on September 22, our recovery rate was 81.19 per cent and the national recovery rate was 80.90 per cent,” said Shukla.

Jharkhand’s Covid mortality rate was 0.86 per cent, against the national Covid mortality rate of 1.60 per cent, as per government figures.

The Union health ministry on Wednesday admitted that several states and union territories had a higher TPM than the country as a whole, while it announced that India’s Covid testing capacity surged above 12 lakh daily tests.