India: 38,902 COVID-19 cases in record 24-hour surge

NEW DELHI, India

With 38,902 new cases and 543 deaths in the last 24 hours, India early Sunday recorded its biggest surge in COVID-19 cases to date. The country’s case tally to date is now at 1,077,618, as the total death toll has climbed to 26,816, said Health Ministry data.

The total number of cases in the country includes 372,379 active cases and 677,423 cured, discharged, or migrated.

With the recovery of close to 23,000 cases in the last 24 hours until Saturday night, India has pushed the recovery case rate to 63.33%.

The cumulative number of 13 million samples tested so far has resulted in 9,473 tests per million for the country, as against WHO guidance of 140 tests per day per million population.

The Indian Council of Medical Research has now begun study of the effectiveness of tuberculosis vaccine Bacille Calmette Guerin (BCG) against COVID-19 in elderly patients age 60-95.

“The study will document whether BCG vaccine can prevent the occurrence of the SARS-CoV-2 infection and its progression and death associated with COVID-19 among elderly individuals,” Dr. Subhash Babu of the National Institute of Research in Tuberculosis told the local ANI agency.

The study uses the same BCG vaccine administered to newborns under the national immunization program for more than five decades.

With the southern state of Tamil Nadu India's second worst-affected state with 165,714 cases and 2,403 deaths so far, its chief minister has ordered that the elderly be given BCG on a trial basis, said a tweet by Dr. C. Vijayabaskar, the state minister for health and family welfare.

The country tests an average of 330,000 suspected COVID cases every day and will ramp this up to one million people within the next 12 weeks, said the Health Ministry.

“Around 1400 dedicated COVID hospitals, 3,000 dedicated health centers, and 10,000 care centers with around 46,000 ICU beds have played a phenomenal role in improving the recovery rate to 63.33%, one of the world’s highest, and reducing the mortality rate to 2.55%, one of the world’s lowest,” said Dr. Harsh Vardhan, union health minister.