(TibetanReview.net, Apr16’21) – After gifting and selling tens of millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses abroad, India suddenly finds itself short of shots as new infections surge in the world’s second-most populous country, reporting over 200,000 cases for the second successive day, noted Reuters and other reports Apr 16.
Having earlier rebuffed foreign drugmakers like Pfizer, the country is now fast-tracking vaccine imports, beginning with Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine this month to cover some 125 million people.
India’s drug controller will process import licences and registration certificate applications of foreign-made jabs in three working days after grant of emergency use approval, reported the timesofindia.com Apr 16, citing guidelines issued by the health ministry on Apr 15.
However, things are still expected to take time as foreign drugmakers work out their strategy and there is also the pricing issue for them to work out with the government of India.
Meanwhile daily Covid-19 cases in India are skyrocketing, with this morning’s reported cases being nearly 9% more than the previous day’s number.
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The latest data from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that there were 217,353 new Covid-19 cases and 1,13 5new deaths in the country in the past 24 hours as of Apr 16 at 8 AM, taking their cumulative totals to 14,291,917 cases and 174,308 deaths respectively.
A total of 12,547,866, or 87.8%, had recovered while the number of active cases was 1,569,743, or 10.98% of the total. However, the case fatality has further fallen to 1.22%.
The active caseload was at its lowest at 1,35,926 on Feb 12 comprising 1.25% of the total infections.
The latest daily number of new cases, at 217,353, was substantially higher than the daily number of those who had recovered, at 118,302, leading to a big jump in the number of active cases by 97,866.
Twenty-one states/Union Territories have reported more than 1,000 new cases in the last 24 hours, namely Maharashtra (61,695), Uttar Pradesh (22,339), Delhi (16,693), Chattisgarh (15,256), Karnataka (14,738), Madhya Pradesh (10,166), Kerala (8,126), Gujarat (8,152), Tamil Nadu (7,987), West Bengal (6,769), Rajasthan (6,658), Bihar (6,133), Haryana (5,858), Andhra Pradesh (5,086), Punjab (4,311), Telangana (3,840), Jharkhand 3,480), Odisha (2,989), Uttarakhand (2,220), Jammu and Kashmir (1,141), and Himachal Pradesh (1,034).
Six other states/Union Territories have reported more than 100 new cases in the last 24 hours, namely Goa (757), Assam (499), Puducherry (413), Chandigarh (412), Ladakh (186), and Dadra And Nagar Haveli And Daman And Diu (103).
Twenty-two states/Union Territories have reported 3 or more Covid-19 deaths each in the last 24 hours, namely Maharashtra (349), Chattisgarh (135), Delhi (112), Uttar Pradesh (104), Gujarat (81), Karnataka (66), Madhya Pradesh (53), Punjab (50), Rajasthan (33), Tamil Nadu (29), Jharkhand (28), Bihar (24), West Bengal (22), Kerala (20), Haryana (18), Andhra Pradesh (14), Uttarakhand (9), Himachal Pradesh (11), Telangana (9), Goa (5), Jammu and Kashmir (4), and Chandigarh (3). The rest of the states/Union Territories have reported 2 or less deaths.
India is now the country with the world’s second highest number of Covid-19 cases and the fourth highest number of deaths in cumulative numbers.
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The cumulative total of Covid-19 cases among Tibetans in India, Nepal and Bhutan has increased by 15 to reach 1,837, according to the weekly briefing Apr 16 of the Covid-19 task force of the Central Tibetan Administration. Of them, 1,648 had recovered, 141 were active and 48 had died.
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Across the world the number of Covid-19 cases totaled 139,181,513 and the deaths 2,988,452, according to the tally of Johns Hopkins University as of Apr 16, 2021 at 3:50 PM.
