Health

With 68,898 fresh cases, COVID tally in India surges past 2.9 million

Srinagar: In the last 24 hours, India has recorded 68,898 fresh cases of the novel coronavirus and 983 deaths, taking the country’s tally past 2.9 million.

According to a data showed by Health Ministry of India, this is the third day in a row that COVID cases in the country have been more than 64,000.

Earlier it was 64,531 on Wednesday and 69,652 on Thursday. The number of active cases stands at 6,92,028 across the country and the death toll at 54,899.

With 62,282 recoveries in the last 24 hours, India’s recovery rate amongst patients has reached 74.29%.

India now has 2,158,946 COVID patients who have recovered. The gap between active and recovered has gone up further at 1,466,918.

Currently, there are over 150 coronavirus vaccines in various stages of development in several countries with a few making advanced progress in clinical trials.

Earlier, Russia announced that the country has already produced the first batch of its COVID vaccine.

In India, a Pune based vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India (SII) has decided to manufacture 100 million COVID vaccine doses which will be capped at Rs 225 per dose.

While the Oxford coronavirus vaccine and a Chinese vaccine showing positive results in the first round of human trials, the Moderna has shown positive results among mice and developed immunity against the disease upon testing.

India’s Covaxin, developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech has also entered the human trial stage and is expected to come out with results in a month.

Pertinently, on August 15, the Prime Minister of India said that three probable COVID vaccines are currently being developed in India and large-scale production will begin as soon as scientists give a green signal.

The Prime Minister paid tribute to all the frontline workers involved in India’s fight against the pandemic.

However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned world governments against “vaccine nationalism” and urged leaders to make plans on how to share life-saving inoculations against coronavirus.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the threat of COVID can only be snuffed out with global coordination, especially when a vaccine is developed.

 

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