India reports 8,603 new COVID-19 cases

India’s COVID-19 tally rose to 34,624,360 on Saturday, even as 8,603 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the health ministry’s latest data.

Besides, as many as 415 deaths due to the pandemic were reported since Friday morning, taking the total death toll to 470,530.

There are still 99,974 active COVID-19 cases in the country with a fall of two active cases during the past 24 hours.

A total of 34,053,856 people have been successfully cured and discharged from hospitals so far, out of which 8,190 were discharged during the past 24 hours.

Earlier, the experts had said that India, despite the horrible performance of its health system, which totally collapsed during the second wave of COVID-19, celebrated its indigenous vaccine as a major success.

India also celebrated achieving its one billion vaccination target as a unique milestone, but the recent study has “badly exposed the reality of such claims”.

The Indian government has been promoting the indigenous vaccine among healthcare workers, and so far, 138 million doses have been administered in India.

However, the vaccine’s rollout was marked by controversy as it was approved in the country before its third trial data was released.

The vaccine, developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, was recently approved by WHO’s technical committee and was included in the list of acceptable vaccines, but only after a wait of four months.

Also Read: New study finds India’s indigenous COVID-19 vaccine only 50pc effective

This is the first real-world assessment of Covaxin, which is one of the two main vaccines being used in India’s inoculation drive.

The real-world study for Covaxin, conducted April 15-May 15, compares with a 77.8% effectiveness rate in a late-stage trial of more than 25,000 participants that was conducted from November 2020 to January 2021.

The study included 2,714 health workers from Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, who were showing signs of infection and underwent RT-PCR testing between 15 April and 15 May, the peak of India’s second wave of coronavirus crisis. The study was published in The Lancet medical journal on 24^th Nov 2021.

All the medical workers were inoculated with two doses of Covaxin at least 14 days before and had a high risk of exposure to the virus.

The study said that half the participants were found to have symptomatic Covid-19 as confirmed by RT-PCR tests.