India sees slight increase in COVID-19 cases; records 41,383 new cases in last 24 hours

India's active COVID-19 cases jumped by 2,224 on Thursday, July 22, after the country recorded a single-day spike of 41,383 new cases with a positive rate of 2.40%, bringing the total caseload to 3.12 crore, according to the Union Health Ministry. So far, 45,09,11,712 samples have been tested for Coronavirus across India, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), with 17,18,439 lakh samples tested on Wednesday, July 21.

COVID-19 situation in India

Meanwhile, India reported 507 fatalities during the same time period, bringing the total to 4.18 crore and a case mortality rate of 1.34%. On the other hand, the recovery rate has improved to 97.35%, with 3.04 crore patients recovering from the virus, said the Health Ministry. 

COVID-19 update

Fresh cases in last 24 hours: 41,383
Total cases: 3,12,57,720
Total recoveries: 3,04,29,339
Active cases: 4,09,394
Death toll: 4,18,987
Total vaccination: 41,78,51,151

COVID-19 vaccination 

Over 415 million vaccination doses have been administered across the country, with 328,716,212 receiving only the first dose and 86,756,243 receiving both doses. Since the start of Phase-3 of the immunisation programme, 13,04,46,413 people between the ages of 18 and 44 have received their first dose and 53,17,567 have received their second dose across 37 states and Union Territories. In the age group 18-44 years, three states, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh, have administered more than 1 crore cumulative doses of Coronavirus vaccine. In addition, the states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand, Kerala, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal vaccinated around 10 lakh people aged 18 to 44 for the first dose of COVID vaccine.

Under the Department of Biotechnology's Mission COVID Suraksha, the Central Government is now funding the development of at least four COVID-19 vaccine candidates, including the world's first DNA vaccine, Zydis Cadila's ZyCov-D. So far, the Mission COVID Suraksha, which was unveiled last year, has contributed Rs 710 crore to support vaccine candidates in human clinical trials and advanced pre-clinical phases. In addition, the funds will be utilised to establish three animal challenge facilities and 19 clinical trial sites for animal and human vaccination testing.

Picture Credit: PTI