Cases have declined by 78% since 7 May peak, ICMR to start national sero surveys, says health ministry

The ICMR will start national-level serosurveys to assess the spread of COVID-19 and all states and Union Territories should be encouraged to conduct them so that information from all geographies can be collected, the Union health ministry said on Friday in a press briefing.

A decline of 31 percent in average daily new cases seen in the last week, while active cases stand at 3.83 percent of the total caseload. The weekly positivity is less than 5 percent in 15 states.

Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry, also said that the COVID-19 situation in the country appears to be stabilising, but urged people by following the appropriate behaviour and social distancing norms.

The ministry said an almost 78 percent decline in daily new COVID-19 cases has been noted in India since the highest reported peak in daily cases on 7 May. Agarwal added that there has been a 74 percent decrease in the weekly COVID-19 positivity rate since the highest such rate was reported between 30 April and 6 May at 21.6 percent.

“The Centre underlined that breaking the chain of transmission ensures lesser strain on the health infrastructure and better quality of care,” he said.

A total of 19.85 crore first doses, 4.75 crore of second doses and a cumulative total of 24.61 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far in the country, Agarwal said, adding that the figure is the second-highest in the world.

This comes on the day when the ministry said over 1.17 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses are still available with the states and UTs, while over 38 lakh doses will be received by them within the next three days.

On the US's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denying Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) to Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin, Dr VK Paul, member, Niti Aayog said, “Every country's regulatory system might have some things in common with others and some things different. We respect it.”

Paul also requested healthcare workers, frontline workers and the elderly to get vaccinated at the earliest and urged states to focus on the same. He also said that the availability of medicines used to treat black fungus has increased.

The daily COVID-19 count in India remained below the one-lakh mark for the fourth consecutive day with the country reporting 91,702 fresh cases, while the daily positivity rate dropped to 4.49 percent, according to health ministry data updated at 8 am. With the fresh cases, the total tally of cases has climbed to 2,92,74,823.

The COVID-19 death toll climbed to 3,63,079 with 3,403 fresh deaths. The active cases further declined to 11,21,671 comprising 3.83 percent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 94.93 percent.

A net decline of 46,281 cases has been recorded in the COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

Also, 20,44,131 tests were conducted on Thursday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 37,42,42,384.

With inputs from PTI