Covid-19 update: Recording a further decline in Covid-19 cases, India on Sunday reported 3,116 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hour period, according to updated data shared by the Union Health Ministry. The active caseload in the country stands at 38,069 on Sunday, the data further revealed.
The daily positivity rate in the country currently is 0.41% while the weekly positivity rate is 0.50 per cent. As many as 5,559 COVID patients recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours taking the total number of recoveries to 4,24,37,072 since the onset of the pandemic in the country.
The recovery rate remains at 98.71%. According to the Ministry, 47 patients succumbed to the virus during this period. The death toll in the country rises to 5,15,850. As far as the vaccination drive is concerned, 180.13 crore COVID vaccine doses have been administered in the country so far under the Nationwide Vaccination Drive.
In the last 24 hours, 20,31,275 vaccine doses were administered taking the total number of vaccine doses administered to 1,80,13,23,547. According to the ICMR, 7,61,737 samples were tested in the last 24 hours. 77,85,20,151 samples have been tested so far in the country.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to further boost protection against Covid-19 virus, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi began the booster dose trial of Bharat Biotech's intranasal Covid-19 vaccine earlier this week. The booster dose will be given to those who have received both the doses of either Covaxin or Covishield at least five months ago but not more than seven months back, Dr Sanjay Rai, Professor at the Centre for Community Medicine at AIIMS, New Delhi told PTI.
India is yet to approve the use of intranasal vaccine against Covid-19, BBV154 developed by the Hyderabad based company. The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) in January had given permission to Bharat Biotech to conduct phase-3 randomized, multi-centric study to evaluate the immunogenicity and safety of the booster dose in participants previously vaccinated with Covishield or Covaxin.
AIIMS, New Delhi is one among the five sites where the booster trial for the nasal vaccine will be conducted. BBV154 is an intranasal replication-deficient chimpanzee adenovirus SARS-CoV-2 vectored vaccine.
(With inputs from agencies)
