India's Covid-19 tally rises to 10,450,284; death toll nears 151,000 mark

There were a total of 18,645 new infections in the previous 24 hours, the Union health ministry's dashboard showed on Sunday.

India recorded 18,645 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the last 24 hours, the Union health ministry said on Sunday, adding that this latest rise in the country's Covid-19 cases has taken the national tally to 10,450,284. In its previous rise, India had recorded 18,222 new infections.

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The country reported a total of 19,299 recoveries from the disease in the last 24 hours-more than new infections-taking the total number of recovered cases to 10,075,950, the ministry's dashboard showed. In the same duration, the dashboard showed, there were 201 fatalities, taking the death toll to 150,999. Active cases, meanwhile, slumped further to 223,335, the dashboard further showed. Recovered cases, active cases and deaths contribute 96.41%, 2.15% and 1.45% of the total cases respectively.

India's latest rise in cases comes at a time the country is getting ready for a nationwide vaccination drive. Two vaccines, Oxford University-AstraZeneca's Covishield, and Bharat Biotech International Limited's Covaxin, were, earlier this month, granted emergency use authorisation (EUA) by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI). While Covishield will be manufactured here by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), Covaxin is the country's first indigenous vaccine against Covid-19. Another vaccine, Ahmedabaad-based Zydus Cadila's ZyCoV-D has been granted permission to initiate phase 3 trials.

On Saturday, the government announced the nationwide vaccination drive will commence on January 16. Two pan-India vaccination dry runs have been carried out, on January 2 and 8, respectively. On December 28 and 29, the exercise was conducted in four states-Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat and Punjab.

India has the second-highest caseload of Covid-19 in the world. The United States has the highest number of infections globally, with Brazil in third. The USA and India are the only two countries to have crossed the 10 million mark, with the former's tally currently exceeding 22 million, while Brazil has recorded more than 8 million cases thus far.