India sees slight decline of 8,290 from Thursday's Covid caseload of 43K;

After witnessing a spike in new Covid cases for the last two days, India saw a slight decline on Friday with 34,973 fresh Covid cases reported in the last 24 hours, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Affairs.

India had reported 43,263 Covid infections on Thursday while on Wednesday, the number stood at 37,875 cases. At the same time, the country registered as many as 260 deaths, pushing the total Covid related deaths to 4,42,009. The fatality rate was reported at 1.33 per cent.

In the last 24 hours, a total of 37,681 Covid-infected patients recovered, pushing the country's total recovery numbers to 3,23,42,299. As per the data, the Covid recovery rate stood at 97.49 per cent.

The weekly positivity rate was reported at 2.31 per cent, which is less than 3 per cent for the last 77 days, while the daily positivity rate at the same period was reported at 1.96 per cent, which is less than 3 per cent for the last 11 days.

The total active cases rose to 3,90,646, which is 1.18 per cent of the total Covid cases reported in the country. Kerala has been the most Covid affected state in the country for the last many weeks, and on Thursday it registered 26,200 fresh cases.

The health ministry's report also said that a total of 53,86,04,854 samples for Covid-19 have been tested in the country, of which 17,87,611 were tested in the last 24 hours.

India has so far administered over 72.3 crore (72,37,84,586) doses of Covid vaccines, out of which 67,58,491 doses were administered in the last 24 hours.

Man from US found Covid positive in UP, contacts being tested

Samples of 12 contacts of a man who has tested positive for Covid after returning from the US, have been sent for testing. The Sringar Nagar resident had landed in Delhi on August 31 and came to Lucknow by road. He got himself tested on Monday and the report came positive on Wednesday.

Dr Milind Vardhan, additional chief medical officer, said, "Health teams on Thursday collected samples of 12 contacts of the Sringar Nagar resident who tested positive for Covid after returning from the US. The samples of his four family members and eight neighbours have been sent to the lab for testing."

The health department is also tracing the driver of the taxi in which the man travelled from Delhi to Lucknow. Meanwhile, the number of persons with active Covid infection dropped to 17 in the city on Thursday as two more patients recovered in the past 24 hours and only one new case was reported.

TN organises mega vax camp Sunday

Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian has appealed to the people of his state to make maximum use of the mega vaccination drive to be carried out at 10,000 centres across the southern state on Sunday against Covid-19.

In a statement on Thursday, the minister said that the state government is planning to inoculate 20 lakh people in a single day on September 12 and 40,000 booths have already been arranged in 10,000 centres.

Booths have been established at Primary Health Centres(PHCs), government hospitals, integrated child development scheme centres, noon-meal centres and schools. The booths, according to the statement from the health minister's office would function from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The mega vaccination drive will be conducted by maintaining strict Covid-19 protocols, including social distancing, wearing of masks, hand sanitisation and other Covid-19 standard protocols issued by the Government of India.

The statement also said that those with cough, running nose, fever and other Covid-19 related symptoms would not be given permission to enter the booths. Beneficiaries will be allowed to be accompanied by only one person in the booth and those who take the jab will have to produce an identity card issued by the Government of India.