COVID-19 cases in India: 27,176 infections & 284 deaths reported, Kerala logs 15,876 cases

India recorded 27,176 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, September 15, bringing the overall number of cases to 3,33,16,755. The death toll rose to 4,43,497 with 284 new deaths. With this, the country has now gone 80 days without recording more than 50,000 daily instances.

According to the Union Health Ministry, active cases have decreased to 3,51,087, accounting for 1.05% of total cases, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has reached 97.62%. Over the course of 24 hours, the active COVID-19 caseload was reduced by 11,120 cases. State/UTs have received more than 75 crore vaccination doses, according to the Union Health Ministry. So far, 75.89 crore vaccine doses have been administered as part of the ongoing countrywide COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

COVID-19 cases in India; Coronavirus update for Kerala

Kerala recorded 15,876 COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, bringing the total number of active cases in the state below two lakh. Kerala's Test Positivity Rate (TPR) has dropped to 15.12% from 19%, according to data released last week. Up until September 14, a total of 54,60,55,796 samples had been tested for COVID-19. In the last 24 hours, 16,10,829 samples were tested.

COVID-19 news: WHO expected to approve Bharat Biotech's vaccine, Covaxin this week

The World Health Organization (WHO) is expected to approve Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, this week, according to ANI sources. Bharat Biotech has presented data from its Phase 3 clinical trials, which showed a 77.8% efficacy rate, to the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation's Subject Expert Committee (SEC) (CDSCO). A pre-submission meeting for the WHO Emergency Use Listing Procedure (EUL), which provides guidance before the final dossier is submitted, was also held in June.

Bharat Biotech, based in Hyderabad, collaborated with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology to create Covaxin. Covaxin contains a whole virion-inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine generated in Vero cells, which was developed in partnership with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The vaccine is stable at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (refrigerated) and comes in a ready-to-use liquid format that can be distributed using existing vaccine supply chains. Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, and Sinopharm all have COVID-19 vaccines approved by the WHO.

(With inputs from ANI)

(IMAGE: PIXABAY / PTI)