The first part of the study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) revealed that 0.73 per cent of the population surveyed showed evidence of past exposure to SARS-CoV-2, and that urban slum population was the most vulnerable to the infection, ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said at a press conference.
"Provide enough infrastructure and money to carry out surveillance and set up a robust routine surveillance machinery for the country to monitor any and every infectious disease'
The death toll climbed to 15,301 with 407 new fatalities, according to the Union health ministry data.
The reason is that because of the hybrid immunity after three waves of natural infection and a large proportion of adults receiving both doses of COVID-19 vaccine, the susceptible pool has come down drastically, Lahariya said.
Asked if the government has decided to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to the entire population free of cost on priority basis and if so, the target fixed to administer the doses, the health minister said according to Revised Guidelines for Implementation of National COVID Vaccination Program, which came into effect from June 21, all citizens aged 18 years and above, irrespective of their income status, are entitled to free vaccination at all government vaccination centres.
The number of recoveries also surged with 2,48,189 patients cured so far, while there were 1,78,014 active cases, according to the updated official figures at 8 am.
NITI Aayog member (health) Dr VK Paul said all decisions on precaution doses are taken first and foremost based on the need.
865 million Indian adults require vaccination.
Our government has failed the country on several counts. All this must change for India to redeem itself in six months, says Naushad Forbes.
This was the sixth consecutive day when coronavirus cases increased by more than 14,000. Consequently, India has added 92,573 cases since June 20, and over 2.82 lakh this month alone since June 1.
Now, only the United States, Brazil, Russia and the United Kingdom are ahead of it. The number of active COVID-19 cases stands at 1,20,406, according to the health ministry. A total of 1,19,292 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, the ministry said.
Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said 50 districts account for 66 per cent of the total caseload and the COVID-19 case fatality rate has progressively declined to 2.10 per cent, the lowest since the first lockdown was imposed on March 25.
Harsh Vardhan said that 51 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses will be made available by July and 216 crore more between August and December.
India's COVID-19 fatality rate has dropped significantly to 2.43 per cent from 3.36 per cent on June 17 due to effective clinical management of coronavirus cases, the health ministry and asserted that the country has handled the pandemic 'relatively well'.
Modi said India has taken an important step forward in protecting its youth population against the disease.
The "COVID Vaccination Amrit Mahotsav" to provide free precaution doses of the vaccines to everyone aged 18 years and above at government vaccination centres commenced on Friday.
The urgent need to address a large number of beneficiaries waiting for second dose of vaccine was stressed in a meeting held by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan and Dr R S Sharma, the Chairman of Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management to Combat COVID-19, with state officials to review the status of COVID-19 vaccination on Tuesday.
From 3.38 per cent in April, the fatality rate in the country has come down to 2.87 per cent as against 6.4 per cent globally.
We should be relieved that we got the doses but we must also know where they came from and who was and who was not responsible for this achievement, notes Aakar Patel.
Nepal has been hit by heavy rainfall since Thursday. More than 25 districts and 10,385 households have been affected.
The further expansion and upgrade of the Chinese military does not augur well for India, which continues to confront an increasingly belligerent China on its borders, notes former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
For communities, inadequate shelter and overcrowding are risk factors in the transmission of diseases with epidemic potential such as COVID-19, the National Centre for Disease Control, which falls under the health ministry, said.
While Covishield supplies would meet the target of 500 mn doses between August and December, it looks like Covaxin would miss the target of 400 mn unless the partner sites of Bharat Biotech ramp up very rapidly, reports Sohini Das.
As the election approaches, the earthquake survivors and the scientists urge political parties to take note of warning signs before it's too late.
India has 0.3 deaths per million population, as compared to 86 in the US, 402 in Spain, 358 in Italy and 190 in the UK, 263 in France, 45 in Germany and one in Japan.
Suggesting that a relatively young Indian population may be one of the reasons for the low mortality rate due to the pandemic, experts have attributed the high number of fatalities in countries like Italy and Spain to their elderly population which are more susceptible to developing complications after contracting the infection.
The plans also state that highly suspected cases testing negative on Rapid Antigen Test should be examined again using the gold standard RT-PCR test.
It is necessary to have a dramatic increase in the number of rapid tests for COVID-19 conducted on a large number of people and that should become the basis for estimating the morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19, not relying only on hospital reports, says Professor K Srinivasan.
Each person in the immunisation list would be linked with their Aadhaar cards to avoid duplication and to track beneficiaries.
India's reproduction value, which reflects how rapidly the coronavirus pandemic is spreading, has remained below 1 since September, suggesting that the infection rate is declining, according to a study.
The Serum Institute of India has informed the Centre that it will be able to supply around 22 crore doses of Covishield in October as the Union government has announced resuming export of surplus Covid vaccines in the coming fourth quarter under the 'Vaccine Maitri' programme, official sources said.
There is no change in treatment guidelines due to this mutation and the vaccines that are being developed, particularly those in the country, will not be impacted, NITI Aayog member (health) Dr V K Paul said.
In a statement Bharat Biotech clarified that the vaccine's efficacy can only be determined 14 days after the second dose.
The National Clinical Registry for COVID-19 will collect systematic data on clinical signs and symptoms, laboratory investigations, management protocols, the clinical course of COVID-19, disease spectrum and outcomes of patients.
India is the seventh worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of the number of infections, after the US, Brazil, Russia, the UK, Spain and Italy. While the recovery rate in coronavirus infections is improving and has reached 48.19 per cent in India, there has been steady decline in the case fatality which is now 2.83 per cent, the health ministry said.
The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is in the community transmission stage in India and it has also become dominant in multiple metros, where new cases have been rising exponentially, said Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium.
'In the coming two-three months, we need to be cautious that there is no upsurge'
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Telangana, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal -- contribute 85.5 per cent of active caseload and 87 per cent of total deaths in India.
'The trajectory of the disease will keep increasing because of the population density being very high.'
The central government had announced that the vaccination for those above 18 years will begin across the country from May 1 as part of the third phase of the inoculation drive.
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