India reported 145,380 cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) after 6,535 new infections were reported between Monday and Tuesday morning, the Union health ministry said.
The health ministry data at 8am showed that 146 people, down from 154 fatalities on Monday morning, also died after contracting Covid-19. So far, 4,167 people have succumbed to the disease. The number of people who have recovered so far stood at 60,490, it said.
More than half of the numbers come from four states.
Maharashtra has 52,667 cases of the coronavirus disease and Tamil Nadu has the second-highest number of patients in the country with 17,082 people infected so far. Gujarat has 14,460 people who have been infected by Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 till date and Delhi’s tally has jumped to 14,053.
With a rising number of cases, more than 6,500 every day since the last four days, India now is the tenth most affected country by the coronavirus pandemic after the United States, Brazil, Russia, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, Germany.
India had overtaken Iran to become the 10th biggest hot spot of the pathogen, which has rapidly swept the globe.
More than 5.49 million people have been infected and 346,232 have died across the world, according to Johns Hopkins Covid-19 tracker.
The US has recorded a further 532 deaths from Covid-19, bringing the toll to 98218, with 16,62,375 cases of the virus, far more than any other nation.
The rise in numbers come on the ninth day of the fourth phase of the lockdown, which is scheduled to end on May 31, as India has eased restrictions considerably including allowing domestic air travel.
The Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) said it has collected around 24,000 blood samples from 60 districts in 21 states over the past two weeks for a sero-survey or a test of blood serum to check for exposure to the Sars-Cov-2 virus in the general population.
The states from where samples were taken are Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, UP, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, and Jammu & Kashmir.
Additionally, about 5,000 samples have been picked from 10 hotspot cities with maximum caseload: Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Thane, Pune, Indore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Aurangabad.
The first batch of about 70% samples was dispatched to a central lab in Tamil Nadu for analysis on Sunday, and the results are expected in about three weeks.
This community-based survey will hold the key for getting several vital clues on the disease trend, testing and so on, experts said.
Apart from the sero-survey, the Union health ministry has a hospital-based active surveillance plan using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests among healthcare workers, outpatient department patients, and pregnant women in all districts.
At least 10 hospitals—six public and four private—will be selected from each district for the sampling, with an overall target of lifting 800 samples a month.
