New Delhi: In a fresh spike of infections, India reported a single-day rise of 2,927 Covid-19 cases and 32 deaths, as updated by the Union health ministry on Wednesday morning. The active caseload jumped to 16,279, while the cumulative total touched 4,30,65,496, the health ministry data showed. The new cases today were at least 17 per cent higher than yesterday’s tally and the active cases increased by 643 in the last 24 hours.
The active infections comprised 0.04 per cent of the total cases, while the national Covid recovery rate was recorded at 98.75 per cent, the ministry said. Recoveries topped 42.5 million, while the case fatality rate touched 1.22 per cent. On Tuesday, the country recorded a slight drop in infections with 2,483 single-day cases. However, a huge surge was recorded in the death toll as Assam added a backlog of 1,347 deaths.
Meanwhile, India’s drug regulator has approved the emergency use of two Covid-19 vaccines, Biological E’s Corbevax and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, for children under the age of 12 years – a milestone move that paves the way for that cohort in the country to receive a vaccine shot against the disease for the first time.
As a threat of another Covid wave looms over India and other countries, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged to maintain surveillance of coronavirus infections, in the wake of the latest surge in cases, especially in China.