Centre in SC: 13 drugs, 30 vaccines being tested for Covid-19

On the status of development for drugs and vaccines for Covid-19, the Centre Friday told the Supreme Court “13 clinical trials of repurposed drugs have been undertaken to build a portfolio of therapeutic options”, and “nearly 30 vaccine candidates encompassing a diverse group of vaccines based on multiple technologies/platforms are under development” in the country “by both academia and industry”. Five of these candidates are in clinical trial stage, of which two vaccines are in Phase III trials and three are in phase II trials, it said.

On the Covid figures, the Centre said, “Presently, India stands at 9.2 million Covid cases, with over 0.44 million active cases, which make up only 4.75 per cent of the current cumulative cases.”

“As most of the countries are observing resurgence of Covid cases, given the size and density of our population, the country has done remarkably well in restricting the spread. Our recovery rate has gone up to 93.76 per cent, with almost 8.6 million recoveries. The average cases per day has reduced by 50 per cent since the past eight weeks.”

The positivity rate was 6.9 per cent while case fatality rate remains low at 1.46 per cent, when compared to a global average of 2.36 per cent, the Centre said. The total death count stands at 0.13 million.

The Centre pointed out that “10 states contribute almost 77 per cent of the active case load for the country. These include Maharashtra (18.9 per cent), Kerala (14.7 per cent), Delhi (8.5 per cent), West Bengal (5.7 per cent), Karnataka (5.6 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (5.4 per cent), Rajasthan (5.5 per cent), Chhattisgarh (5.0 per cent), Haryana (4.7 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (3.1 per cent).”

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The country is now testing on an average, almost 1.1 million samples daily… “a remarkable increase from 6,000 tests daily at the start of April,” the affidavit added.