Updated April 19th, 2020 at 17:39 IST

No new COVID-19 cases in 54 districts in past 14 days: Health Ministry

Health Ministry said other than Mahe and Kodagu, 54 new districts in 23 different States and UTs have not reported fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 14 days.

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The Health Ministry on Sunday informed that other than Puducherry's Mahe and Karnataka's Kodagu district, 54 new districts in 23 different States and Union Territories have not reported a rise in COVID-19 cases in the last 14 days.

"10 new districts have included — Gaya and Saran in Bihar; Bareilly in UP; Fatehgarh Sahib and Rupnagar in Punjab; Bhiwani, Hisar and Fatehabad in Haryana and Cachar and Lakhimpur in Assam. We will continue our vigil to ensure no new cases here come up," Lav Aggarwal said.

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Speaking on the share of asymptomatic COVID-19 infected people, Lav Aggarwal said that historical data across the world show that there is not a big percentage of such persons testing COVID-19 positive and maintained that high-risk asymptomatic persons are part of sampling criteria who are tested and monitored.

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Task Force for COVID vaccine and drug

A high-level task force to work on frontiers of science related to vaccines and drug testing was formed on Sunday which will be co-chaired by a NITI Aayog member and Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, the Health Ministry informed. Department of Biotechnology is the designated central coordination agency for the development of a vaccine to fight COVID-19.

The main aim of this task force is to enable and speed up efforts for vaccine development made by academia, industry and international agencies, the joint Secretary said.

Other than them, the task force will include members from the AYUSH Ministry, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Department of Science and Technology, Department of Biotechnology, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Director General of Health Services and Drug Controller General of India.

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Published April 19th, 2020 at 17:39 IST