India will cross the landmark of one billion, or 100 crore, COVID-19 vaccine doses next week, either on Monday or Tuesday, top Health Ministry sources have said, calling this a "great achievement".
Till this evening around 96.7 crore doses have been administered.
India recorded 15,823 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the infection tally to 3,40,01,743, while the national Covid recovery rate increased to 98.06 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry's data at 8 am.
The numbers of deaths reached 4,51,189 with 226 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.
The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 30,000 for 19 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 108 consecutive days now.
The active cases have declined to 2,07,653 comprising 0.61 per cent of the total infections while the national Covid recovery rate was recorded at 98.06 per cent, the ministry said.
India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20 lakh-mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.
India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23.
Here are highights on Coronavirus Cases In India :
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday the Emergency Use Listing process for Russia's Sputnik-V COVID-19 vaccine was on hold pending some missing data and legal procedures, which the U.N. body hopes will be "sorted out quite soon". reported news agency Reuters.
"We are working almost on a daily basis with the ministry of health in Russia to address the remaining issues to be fulfilled by the Russian Direct Investment Fund," said Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products.
Kerala on Wednesday reported 11,079 fresh Covid-19 cases and 123 deaths, taking the total caseload to 48,20,698 and fatalities to 26,571.
The state has been showing a decline in the daily fresh cases after crossing the 30,000-mark post-Onam festival in August.
With 9,972 more people recovering from the virus since Tuesday, the total recoveries touched 46,95,904 and the active cases dropped to 97,630, a state government release said
G20 trade ministers on Tuesday promised to work towards a fair distribution of Covid-19 vaccines by lifting export restrictions and making the trade system more transparent.
Their final statement, adopted after a meeting in Sorrento, southern Italy, was a sign of the return of multilateralism, said Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio.
"We have to ensure that there is greater circulation of vaccines and that there are production factories in the developing countries," French trade minister Franck Riester said.
France is set to join Germany in charging for Covid tests in a bid to ramp up vaccinations.
While some countries are keeping tests free, others are ramping up the price.
It's one of the great puzzles of the pandemic. Most developed economies are now highly vaccinated with some of the most effective shots on offer, so why are the latest Covid-19 outbreaks more deadly in some places than in others?
While it's clear vaccines led to a drop in fatalities during the most recent delta variant-driven waves compared with earlier bouts with the virus, some countries saw deaths fall to a greater degree than others, an outcome scientists still don't have answers for.
Countries like Germany, Denmark and the UK have seen Covid deaths fall to roughly a tenth of previous peaks, according to Bloomberg calculations using data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. In Israel, Greece and the US, fatalities fell but remained more than half of the previous peaks.
