India on Thursday registered its highest single-day spike in Coronavirus cases and deaths as 9,304 infections and 260 fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours.
With this massive jump, the total number of cases in the country has climbed to 2,16,919 with 6,075 succumbing to the deadly infection.
Of the total number, 1,06,737 are active cases while 1,04,107 people have been cured, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The country’s recovery rate stood at 47.99 per cent this morning, a slight decrease from Wednesday’s 48.31 per cent. Meanwhile, the Government has stated that India has one of the world’s lowest fatality rates at 2.8 per cent.
Maharashtra remains the state with most cases of infections at 74,860, out of which 39,944 are active cases and 32,329 people have recovered. As many as 2,587 people have lost their lives. This is followed by Tamil Nadu with 25,872 cases and 208 deaths and Delhi with 23,645 infections and 606 deaths.
Gujarat has the highest number of deaths (122) after Maharashtra.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization announced on Wednesday that clinical trials of Hydroxychloroquine drug will resume as it searches for potential coronavirus treatments. On May 25, the WHO announced it had temporarily suspended the trials to conduct a safety review, which has now concluded there is “no reason” to change the way the trials are conducted.
At a press conference in the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “On the basis of the available mortality data, the members of the committee recommended that there are no reasons to modify the trial protocol.
“The Executive Group received this recommendation and endorsed continuation of all arms of the solidarity trial, including hydroxychloroquine.”
The UN health agency’s decision to suspend the trials came after a study published in The Lancet medical journal suggesting the drug could increase the risk of death among COVID-19 patients.
The decision to resume came as The Lancet issued a correction after more than 100 scientists and medical professionals raised questions about integrity of data analysed in the study. In the correction issued on Friday, Lancet said that one hospital self-designated as belonging to the Australasia continental designation should have been assigned to the Asian continental designation.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had earlier written to the WHO, expressing its disagreement with the global health body’s advisory against the use of anti-malaria Hydroxychloroquine in treating Coronavirus patients.
The ICMR, in the letter, cited the difference in dosage administered to patients and said that international dosages are four times higher than Indian trials.
Globally, 6,432,370 cases of coronavirus have been reported and 385,991 have lost their lives according to Johns Hopkins University. United States remains the country with maximum number of cases at 1,851,520 followed by Brazil and Russia.