Coronavirus cases in India cross 27 lakh mark; death toll at 51,797

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Aug 18, 2020: Coronavirus cases in India have now crossed the 27 lakh-mark with over 55,000 new cases being recorded on Monday. In the past 24 hours, 876 people have died across the country, taking India’s coronavirus toll to 51,797.

 

On Monday, India recorded 55,079 new coronavirus cases, taking India’s tally to 27,02,742.

With the total going over 27 lakh, the number of recovered cases in India has also gone up over the past weeks. As of Monday, there are 19,77,779 recovered cases in the country with a recovery rate of 73.18%, according to the health ministry data.

As new coronavirus cases continue adding to the tally, active cases in the country are now over 6 lakh. As of Monday there are 6,73,166 active coronavirus cases.

The Health Ministry has said a new high of coronavirus testing was recorded on Monday with 8.97 lakh samples being tested in 24 hours. In a tweet, the ministry said, “A new peak of 8.97 lakh COVID19 tests were done in the last 24 hours. Even with such a high level of testing, the positivity has remained low i.e. 8.81% compared to the weekly national average i.e. 8.84%.”

Meanwhile, a government panel of experts met with the five companies that are working on developing coronavirus vaccines in India or are collaborating with foreign companies to bring the vaccines here.

The panel met with representatives of five firms -- Serum Institute of India (Pune), Bharat Biotech (Hyderabad), Zydus Cadila (Ahmedabad), Gennova Biopharmaceuticals (Pune) and Biological E (Hyderabad) to discuss the stages of vaccine development they are at and production.

The phase-1 human clinical trials of the two COVID-19 vaccine candidates developed indigenously by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and Zydus Cadila Ltd have been completed and the trials have moved to phase 2, ICMR Director General Bhargava had said at a press briefing recently.

The Serum Institute of India, which has partnered with AstraZeneca for manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by the University of Oxford, has been permitted for conducting Phases 2 and 3 human clinical trials of the candidate in India. It is likely to start the trials soon.


courtesy:IndiaToday