India on Sunday recorded its lowest number of daily deaths caused by the novel coronavirus since May 1 last year, with 78 people succumbing to the deadly disease in the last 24 hours. The country’s death toll currently stands at 1.5 lakh, according to government data. 

Meanwhile, the total caseload rose to over 1.08 crore after 12,059 new Covid-19 cases were reported across the country on Saturday. According to data released by the Union Health Ministry, the total number of active cases in India is now down to 1.48 lakh, which is 1.37 per cent of the country’s total caseload. 

A bulk of the new cases were recorded in Kerala and Maharashtra, where 5,942 and 2,768 new cases were detected, respectively. Only 3,349 cases were collectively reported from the rest of the country.

On Saturday, over 2.2 lakh healthcare and frontline workers were vaccinated as part of India’s nationwide phase-wise vaccination drive, which is said to be the biggest in the world. At present, over 56 lakh ‘corona warriors’ have already received the coronavirus vaccine. 

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday announced that the country is in the process of developing seven more Covid-19 vaccines and also working on further vaccine development to inoculate every citizen of India, PTI reported.

“We are not dependent only on the two vaccines as the country is working on seven more indigenous vaccines. Simultaneously, we are also working on the development of more vaccines because India is a huge country and we need more players and research to reach out to everyone,” he had said.

Source: The Indian Express 

BDST: 1250 HRS, FEB 07, 2021
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