Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh on Wednesday launched rapid antigen test kits in the state.

Sharing the details, Dr Kh Sasheekumar Mangang, additional director and spokesperson of Health department in a press release in the evening said, Manipur has received 15,000 kits from Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

The kits will be sent to other districts also as per requirement.

300 kits have been sent to Jiribam and testing started from Wednesday itself, it said.

Meanwhile, the total number of COVID-19 cases continues to increase in the State.

As of Wednesday, the State has a total of 1435 COVID-19 positive cases including 642 active cases, and 793 have recovered, the source said.

The recovery rate is 55.26 per cent.

In the last 24 hours, five persons (four male and one female) were confirmed as new COVID-19 positive cases from the VRDL (Virus Research & Diagnosis Laboratory) of JNIMS, the press release added.

All are from senapati district.

They are being shifted to COVID Care Facilities,Senapati, it said.

All necessary medical precautionary measures like containment and contact tracing are in place.

In the past 24 hours, 22 persons were discharged from COVID care centres of Meitram (14),Senapati (2),Kamjong (1) and COVID Care facilities of RIMS (1) and JNIMS (4) after they were found COVID-19 free on a Real Time PCR test, it added.

As on Wednesday, 2,96,366 persons have  been screened at various entry points of the state while 58,839 others were tested for COVID-19, according to a report by the state surveillance officer of integrated disease surveillance programme.

A total of 51,745 persons who returned from outside the State completed quarantine while 4861 are currently at quarantine centres in the State.

Meanwhile as part of the ongoing drive on violators of lockdown, not wearing face masks in public and not maintaining social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the Manipur Police have detained 411 persons along with 280 vehicles and altogether fined a sum of Rs 56,150 only as per law, according to police sources.