India's daily Covid-19 cases lowest in 45-days

INDIA reported on Saturday (29) 173,790 new coronavirus infections during the previous 24 hours, its lowest daily rise in 45 days, while deaths rose by 3,617.

The South Asian nation's tally of infections now stands at 27.7 million, with the death toll at 322,512, health ministry data showed.

The daily positivity further declined to 8.36 per cent, remaining below 10 per cent for five consecutive days, while the weekly positivity rate dropped to 9.84 per cent, it said.

According to the ministry, as many as 2,080,048 tests were conducted on Friday (28) taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of Covid-19 in the country to 34,111,990.

The active cases have further reduced to 2,228,724, comprising 8.04 per cent of the total infections, while the national Covid-19 recovery rate has improved to 90. 80 per cent, it said.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 25,178,011 while the case fatality rate stands at 1.16 per cent, the data stated.

India crossed the grim milestone of 10 million Covid-19 cases on December 19, 2020, and 20 million cases on May 4 this year.

Drug substance production

Hyderabad-based Indian Immunologicals Limited, under the National Dairy Development Board, will begin the production of drug substance meant for Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin from June 15, and despatch the first batch to Bharat Biotech by July.

The firm is expected to produce the drug substance initially for 2-3 million doses per month, managing director K Anand Kumar said. It will be scaled up to 7m later this year and eventually to 15m.

To further increase the Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing capacity, Bharat Biotech had said it partnered with Indian Immunologicals to make the drug substance for Covaxin.

The technology transfer process was well underway and the company has the capabilities and expertise to manufacture inactivated viral vaccines at commercial scale and under biosafety containment, Kumar said.

The drug firm is converting its Karkapatla manufacturing unit into a Biosafety Level -3 (BSL3) facility for the production of the drug substance.

It is also working on another Covid -19 vaccine and the animal trials are underway. It is expected to come out next year for human vaccination, the MD added.