India's COVID-19 recoveries exceed active cases by over 48 L

A day after the government announced SOPs for cinema owners before reopening, there was some good news: the number of people recovered from COVID-19 has exceeded those with active infection by more than 48 lakh as the recovery rate surpassed 85 per cent on Wednesday, the Health Ministry said.

Nearly 57.50 lakh people have recovered so far, which is 6.32 times the active cases, it said, adding the sustained high levels of recoveries have widened the gap between active and recovered cases.

“The national recovery rate has climbed past 85 per cent today with the continuous streak of high number of recovered cases being reported in the past few weeks. The recovered cases have exceeded the new confirmed again during the past 24 hours,” the ministry said in a statement.

As many as 82,203 recoveries have been registered in the last 24 hours and the total recovered cases have exceeded the active cases by more than 48 lakh, it said.

The ministry said 75 per cent of the new recovered cases were reported from 10 states — Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Delhi.

“Maharashtra is topping the list with nearly 17,000 recoveries while Karnataka contributes more than 10,000 to the single-day recoveries,” it said. The ministry also said 10 states and UTs account for 78 per cent of the new confirmed cases.

“Maharashtra continues to lead this tally. It has contributed more than 12,000 followed by Karnataka with nearly 10,000 cases,” it said.

India’s COVID-19 caseload climbed to 67.57 lakh and the death toll to 1,04,555. The fatality rate has declined to 1.55 per cent, according to the health ministry data on Wednesday (October 7).

In a related development, India’s apex drug regulator, The Drugs Controller General of India has given permission for conducting Phase-1 human clinical trial for an ‘antisera’ that was developed by injecting inactivated SARS-CoV-2 in horses and can be a potential treatment for COVID-19, ICMR officials said on Tuesday (October 6).

The ‘antisera’ has been developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in collaboration with a Hyderabad-based bio-pharmaceutical firm.

Antisera are blood serum high in antibodies against specific antigens and are injected in humans to help kickstart the immune system to fight specific infections.

“The ICMR and Biological E Limited, Hyderabad, have developed highly purified antisera (raised in animals) for prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19,” the apex health research body had earlier said in a tweet.

The pre-print version of the study regarding the development of the equine antisera has been posted on the Research Square platform.