India Coronavirus Dispatch: Bihar worst performer on vaccination coverage

Delta variant now in 174 districts across the country, govt is developing two new testing labs for vaccines, more-news relevant to India's fight against the pandemic

Over 48,500 fresh cases reported

 

India reported 48,698 fresh coronavirus infections on Saturday, taking the cumulative caseload to 30.1 million, according to central health ministry data. The country saw 1,183 deaths due to the pandemic, taking the death toll to 394,493. The active caseload is at 595,565, while the total recoveries have surged to 29.2 million. As many as 315 million vaccine shots have been administered since the nationwide inoculation programme kicked off on January 16. Of these, 6.1 million were given on Friday. Read more

 

 

Bihar worst performer on state ​Covid vaccination list

 

States such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand continue to be laggards in vaccinating their populations against Covid-19, a report in ThePrint said. The three states have been the worst performers in terms of the percentage of the population that has received at least one dose of the vaccine. Bihar occupies the bottom of the table, with only 10.7% of its people having received the first dose till Thursday. It also has the lowest population of fully-vaccinated individuals — 1.74 per cent of the total population, the report said. Read more

 

 

Two new testing labs being readied to ease pressure on Kasauli-based CDL

 

The central government has begun the process to develop two new testing labs for vaccines to ease pressure on the Kasauli-based Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL), a report in ThePrint said. The two new labs will come up at the National Centre for Cell Sciences (NCCS) in Pune and the National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB) in Hyderabad. Currently, CDL is the only such laboratory in the country. The new labs will come up at a time a slew of new Covid vaccines is expected to become due for clearance in the coming months. Read more

 

 

Delta variant now in 174 districts

 

The Delta variant is now present in at least 174 districts of the country, a report in The Indian Express said. Data released by the Ministry showed that the variant was present in 52 districts across the country in March. The variant was a major contributor to the second wave of infections that peaked in April-May. The variant's sub-lineage, Delta Plus, has been detected in 48 samples in 10 states. Read more

 

 

Is the Delta Plus variant more transmissible?

 

Since the Delta Plus variant—a mutant strain of the Delta variant of the coronavirus—is new, not much is known about its severity or resistance to antibodies, an explainer in Hindustan Times said. Some reports claim that the Delta Plus variant is resistant to monoclonal antibodies cocktail, but more studies are needed in this area. Also, an emerging variant of the Delta plus mutant strain has also acquired the K417N mutation, found in Beta variants in South Africa. Some researchers fear that the mutation combined with other existing features of the Delta variant could make it more transmissible. However, more research is needed to establish this for sure, the report said. Read more