India on Friday registered 3,43,144 new Covid-19 infections, pushing the caseload tally to 2,40,46,809, according to the Health Ministry. The country has logged 4,000 deaths for the third day in a row, following which now total fatalities stand at 2,62,317. Maharashtra (850), has been registering maximum casualties, followed by Karnataka with 344 daily deaths.
There has been a drop in cases to 3704893 comprising 15.65 per cent of the total infections.
A total of 3,44,776 people have been discharged from various hospitals and the number of people who have recovered from the disease mounted to 2,00,79,599 while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.09 per cent, the ministry data stated. The national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 83.26 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.
The top five states which have recorded most cases are Maharashtra with 42,582 cases, followed by Kerala with 39,955 cases, Karnataka with 35,297 cases, Tamil Nadu with 30,621 cases and Andhra Pradesh with 22,399 cases. 49.79% of the new cases are reported from these five states, with Maharashtra alone responsible for 12.41% of the new cases.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the government said the virus may appear again and so preparations have to be made at the national level in collaboration with states to handle the pandemic. It also has increased the gap between the first and second doses of the Covishield vaccine to 12-16 weeks, which earlier was 6-8 weeks. This is for the second time in three months that Covishield dosage intervals have been widened.
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States like Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Karnataka have called for global tenders for procuring COVID vaccines amid an acute shortage of the jabs. The central government and Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech which is manufacturing COVAXIN has called for other companies to produce the vaccine to help scale up the production. "Companies that want to manufacture Covaxin, should do it together. The centre will assist so that capacity is increased," NITI Aayog member Dr VK Paul said.
According to the World Health Organization, India has been accounting for 95% of COVID cases and 93% of fatalities in the South-East Asia region, as well as 50 per cent of global cases and 30 per cent of global deaths.
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The "human catastrophe" that has been seen in India and Nepal is a warning and governments across South Asia should immediately address healthcare shortages. The human and resource calamity has called for strengthening their systems to respond to the rapid surge of COVID-19 cases, Amnesty International said on Thursday.