Covaxin, India's home-grown Covid vaccine produced by Bharat Biotech, has been found to neutralise the B.1.617 variant or the Indian double mutant strain, White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday.
"Now, this is something where we're still gaining data on a daily basis. But the most recent data was looking at convalescent sera of COVID-19 cases in people who received the vaccine used in India, the Covaxin. And it was found to neutralise the 617 variant," he said, according to news agency PTI.
"So despite the real difficulty that we're seeing in India, vaccination could be a very, very important antidote against this," Dr Fauci was quoted as telling reporters.
Meanwhile, India saw a record single-day rise of 3,60,960 coronavirus cases, which pushed the total tally to 1,79,97,267, while the death count crossed two lakh following 3,293 fresh fatalities, according to Union health ministry data updated on Wednesday.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease is 1,48,17,371, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.12 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.
Registering a steady increase, the active cases have risen to 29,78,709, comprising 16.55 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has further dropped to 82.33 per cent, it said.
The death count stands at 2,01,187, the data stated.
India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7 last year, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.
