India sees decrease in COVID cases with 17,336 cases recorded

The number of coronavirus infections in India has decreased in the previous 24 hours, with the Union Health Ministry reporting 15,940 new cases of covid-19, compared to the 17,336 total cases recorded on Friday.

According to the most recent Health Ministry data, India’s active caseload stood at 91,779 at a rate of 0.21 percent, up from 88,284 at a rate of 0.20 percent the day before. In addition, the Ministry reported that the country has seen as many as 12,425 recoveries from the sickness in the previous 24 hours, bringing the overall number of recoveries to 4,27,61,481 at a rate of 98.58 percent.

The country’s daily positivity rate is 4.39 percent, while its weekly positivity rate is 3.30 percent.

According to the Health Ministry, 86.02 crore tests have been performed across the country thus far, with 3,63,103 performed in the previous 24 hours alone.

Covid vaccines

The Ministry also revealed that as much as 196.94 crores of covid-19 vaccine had been distributed to Indian states and union territories as part of the Union Government’s Nationwide Vaccination Drive.

Also Read: Over 12.14 million unutilized COVID-19 vaccination doses still accessible with states & UTs

In light of an increase in COVID-19 cases in India, Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya reviewed the COVID-19 and vaccination situation in the country on Thursday.

Mandaviya urged a high-level conference to rigorously monitor the COVID-19 situation in the country, focusing on vaccination of the elderly population, school-aged children, monitoring, and genome sequencing.

Over the previous several weeks, India has seen an increase in the number of COVID-19 instances.

The Union Minister emphasised the need of focusing on districts with a high case positive rate and doing proper testing (with a larger proportion of RTPCR) as well as effective COVID-19 surveillance in order to identify and limit the spread of illness in a timely way.

Mandaviya urged officials to continue focusing on monitoring and whole-genome sequencing (WGS) to look for any potential mutations.

He also oversaw hospitalizations related to COVID-19 and SARI/ILI patients.

He also urged health officials to speed up vaccination, including booster doses, in regions with high case counts. “As long as appropriate vaccine doses are available, there should be no vaccine waste,” he said, “while focusing on expediting vaccination among the eligible and vulnerable populations.”

According to a new forecast scheduled to be published in the Lancet journal on Friday, COVID-19 vaccination may have helped cut the number of fatalities worldwide by about a third, including by 2.7 million to 5.3 million in India.

After India reported the largest number of COVID-19 cases in the recent 100 days, a leading specialist stated that the increase in COVID-19 infections is not cause for alarm, but that the virus’s severity must be properly monitored.

According to Dr. Sanjay Rai, Senior Epidemiologist at AIIMS, the increase in COVID-19 cases is not a cause for alarm, but there is a need to actively monitor severity, mortality, and hospitalisation.