India sees daily COVID cases at more than two-month low

dpa New Delhi India logged 84,332 fresh coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the lowest number of infections in 70 days, government data showed on Satu...

dpaNew Delhi India logged 84,332 fresh coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the lowest number of infections in 70 days, government data showed on Saturday.The South Asian country however reported a high number of virus-related deaths, with 4,002 fatalities in the same period, according to a Health Ministry bulletin.The rise in deaths has been attributed to a revision of casualty figures from states like western Maharashtra, which alone added 2,213 “backlog deaths,” broadcaster NDTV reported.On Thursday, India reported its highest single-day casualty figure of 6,148 when the eastern state of Bihar raised its death-tally by 3,951 after it completed an audit for all possible COVID -19 deaths.India’s overall COVID -19 death-toll stands at 367,081.Infections in India have jumped from 10 million at the beginning of the February second wave to 29.4 million. Overall, infection rates are second only to the United States.With the second wave now seen to be waning, several regional governments including national capital New Delhi and the financial hub of Mumbai have cautiously begun easing lockdown measures.So far, only some 3.5 percent of the more than 1.3 million inhabitants in India have been fully vaccinated against COVID -19.Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech on Saturday shared full data of all research studies of its Covaxin-- India’s first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine.As per the company officials, the complete data for Phase I and II, and partial data for Phase III trials of Covaxin have been thoroughly scrutinised by the regulators in India. In a timely approach to peer review, the company has already published as many as nine research studies on the safety and efficacy of Covaxin in five globally reputed peer-reviewed journals in a span of just twelve months. Covaxin, a whole-virion inactivated coronavirus vaccine, has many firsts to its credit in data transparency. It is the first and only product to have published any data from human clinical trials in India.Covaxin is the only product to have any data on emerging variants and it is also the first and only COVID-19 vaccine to have efficacy data in Indian populations, Bharat Biotech said in a statement.In vaccine development, preclinical studies involve the testing of vaccine candidates in laboratory animals. The company said that the full data from studies on Covaxin’s neutralization of variants are already published at “bioRxiv”, Clinical Infectious Diseases, and Journal of Travel Medicine.