(Image: Reuters)

The ongoing trend of contraction of India’s daily new COVID-19 cases continued with the country recording less than 20,000 daily new infections since the last seven days, the Union Health Ministry said on Thursday.

In a span of 24 hours, only 16,946 people were found to be infected with COVID-19 in India.

In the same period, the country also registered 17,652 new recoveries ensuring a net decline of 904 cases in the active caseload, the ministry said.

Daily deaths due to the coronavirus infection in India are on a sustained decline.

Less than 300 daily deaths have been registered for the last 20 days, the ministry highlighted. India’s case fatality rate stands at 1.44 percent as on date.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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India records less than 20,000 new COVID cases daily since last 7 days: Health Ministry

In the same period, the country also registered 17,652 new recoveries ensuring a net decline of 904 cases in the active caseload, the ministry said.

(Image: Reuters)

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