Written By: Longjam Dineshwori | Published : May 28, 2020 4:12 PM IST
Only severe cases need to test negative for discharge, says Health Ministry. @Shutterstock
Despite the continuation of the lockdown measures, India is witnessing increasing number of new COVID-19 cases every day. According to the Health Ministry data, the country recorded 6,566 new cases on Thursday, taking the total tally to 1,58,333. India also saw 194 new deaths on the same day, which is the second highest number of deaths reported in 24 hours. The country had reported 195 deaths in a day on May 5.
So far COVID-19 has claimed 4,531 lives in India, mostly the elderly people and those with underlying health conditions. Of the total cases at least 86,110 are active cases and a total of 67,691 people have recovered from the disease.
While the country continues to maintain the plateau of over 6,000 new cases per day, the mortality rate has now reduced to 2.86% from 3.38% in April, the health ministry said. This is comparatively very low compare to the global average fatality rate that stood at 6.45%.
Maharashtra continues to be the worst hit state with 56,948 cases, which is 35.96 per cent of the total number of cases in the country. It is followed by Tamil Nadu with 18,545 cases and Delhi with 15,257 cases.
Meanwhile, the cases are rising in Bihar (3,061) and Uttar Pradesh (6,991) mostly due to the migrant exodus from metro cities to these states.
Globally, India is the 10th worst hit country due to the pandemic, just behind Turkey (1,59,797). In terms of total cases, India has already surpassed Iran and China. Meanwhile, the number of total confirmed COVID-19 cases have reached 5,491,678 worldwide including 349,190 deaths, reports the World Health Organization (WHO).
As many as 67,691 people have recovered from the coronavirus disease so far, taking the recovery rate to 42.75 per cent, according to the Health Ministry.
The Ministry attributes timely lockdown and early detection of the cases behind the high recovery rate. The recovery rate was around 7.1% when the first lockdown started, which increased to 11.42% during the second lockdown, then to 26.59% in the third phase. As India entered the lockdown 4.0, the recovery rate rises to over 42%, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary at the Health Ministry told media persons on Tuesday.
Earlier, during a press conference, Agarwal stressed that India has been concurrently focusing on upgrading the COVID dedicated health infrastructure, which has led to relatively fewer cases in the country. The high recovery rate also indicates that the disease is curable and the clinical management protocols adopted by India are effective, he added.
Of all the active cases under treatment, 2.9 per cent require oxygen support, about 3 per cent require ICU support and 0.45 per cent require ventilator support Agarwal said.
Till now, a total of 33,62,136 samples have been tested, according to Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Over 1.1 lakh samples are tested per day at 612 labs, the country's apex health research body claimed.
The ICMR has also said that human trials of COVID-19 vaccine candidate will begin within the six months in the country.
Dr Rajni Kant, Director Regional Medical Research Centre and Head at ICMR, told media persons that the virus strain isolated at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) laboratory in Pune will be used to develop the vaccine. According to him, this strain has been successfully transferred to the Bharat Biotech International Ltd (BBIL) and human trials of the vaccine is expected to begin with six months.
