The latest data released by the Health Ministry on Thursday morning revealed that India recorded highest single day spike with 9,996 new cases of Covid-19 and 357 deaths in the last 24 hours. With this India has total 2,87,754 confirmed cases of Covid-19 with 1,41,348 recovered and 8,116 deceased. The active cases as of recent tally stands at 1,38,275. The numbers indicate that for the second day in a row, India has registered more recovered cases than active cases.

Maharashtra is still leading the states with highest tally of cases 94,041 and death count at 3,438. Mumbai is also leading the cities with highest case count of coronavirus.

The latest reports suggest that Maharashtra is conducting 4,688 Covid-19 tests per million population. This is much lower than Rajasthan that is conducting 7,623 tests per million. Tamil Nadu is leading the testing brigade with 18,209 tests being conduction per million population. Despite of lower testing, Maharashtra is accounting for 33.5% of total cases in India.

“India not in community transmission stage yet”, says ICMR

In a recent update, Dr. Balram Bhargava, DG of ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) said in a press conference on Thursday, “India is such a large country and prevalence is very low that we have found that prevalence is less than 1% in the small districts, in the urban areas it might be a little over 1% and slightly higher in containment areas. India is not in community transmission.”

Dr. Bhargava however stressed on the importance of continued widespread testing, tracing and quarantine or isolation. He acknowledged that these measures being followed across India are one of the main reasons for cases being less as compared to what they could have been in absence of any protocols.

Tamil Nadu under scrutiny for wrong death tally in the state

Tamil Nadu has come under scrutiny after the Directorate of Public Health (DPH) announced 224 deaths in the state till June 8 as against the correct number of deceased as 460.  

DPH officials reported the lapse in death recording by the Greater Chennai Corporation. If the new count is considered, state’s death rate goes up to 1.5% as against 0.7% as recorded by the state officials.

A committee has been formed to analyze the situation and release the reports by the end of this week.

Faster clinical trial reforms to be pushed by Centre

The Central government is working on seizing the pandemic opportunity to boost healthcare system in the country by fast dialing the clinical trial and research reforms. The Centre is advocating to dismiss the regulatory maze for faster innovation and research work on vaccine developments, therapeutics and diagnostics.

Niti Ayog is heading this effort and Pune based CDAC will be responsible for drafting a common regulatory approval protocol for clinical trials. The proposal is to limit the clinical trial approval period to 90 days.

Indian company right on the vaccine path

Panacea Biotech, an Indian vaccine maker company is collaborating with US company Refana Inc to make Covid-19 vaccine in 12-18 months. The vaccine would be developed using full but inactive virus, which is expected to jump the mutation hurdle and work in every case. Panacea is reportedly in talks with ICMR to take the research forward.