Coronavirus cases in India inches closer to 63000, death toll crosses 2000
New Delhi/IBNS: India reported 3,277 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours taking the total number of infections across the country to 62,939, including 2,109 deaths, the Union Home Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
At least 128 COVID-19 linked deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.
Of these a minimum of 50 per cent cases have been reported from five major cities - Delhi, Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra, Ahmedabad in Gujarat and Chennai in Tamil Nadu.
Maharashtra, being the worst-hit state in the country, reported 48 virus-related deaths in 24 hours on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Saturday announced to partner with the Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) to develop a fully indigenous vaccine for Covid-19 using the virus strain isolated at ICMR's National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune, reports said.
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According to ICMR, the virus strain has been successfully transferred from its NIV facility to BBIL and work on vaccine development has been initiated between the two partners.
Officials at ICMR said that ICMR-NIV will provide continuous support to BBIL for vaccine development, and ICMR and BBIL will seek fast-track approvals to expedite vaccine development, subsequent animal studies and clinical evaluation of the candidate vaccine.
On Saturday, the Union Health Ministry also announced that to deploy Central teams to 10 states that have witnessed/are witnessing high case load and high spurt of cases.
The teams will assist the State Health departments of respective states to facilitate the management of COVID-19 outbreak.
The teams will be sent to states like Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
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The Union Home Ministry also granted permission for opening of 3000 CBSE affiliated schools as assessment centres across India to facilitate evaluation of answer sheets of CBSE Board exams.
The nationwide lockdown, which is in the third phase to combat the spread of the pandemic, is scheduled to be lifted off on May 17.
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