The coronavirus cases in the country reached 21,370 on Wednesday night with 1,270 fresh cases reported during the day. The death toll stood 681 with as many as 36 patients falling prey to the virus in the last 12 hours itself.
The Union Health Ministry said that with a total of 4,122 patients being recovered from the viral infection so far, the recovery rate stands at 19.36 per cent in the country.
Maharashtra continued to be the worst hit with 5,649 coronavirus cases and 269 deaths. The highest number of cases was reported from Mumbai with more than 3,400 positive Covid-19 patients. On Wednesday Maharashtra added 431 new cases.
Gujarat has reported 229 new cases to log a total of 2,407 cases and 95 deaths, followed by Delhi, which has reported 2,248 cases and 48 deaths. Rajasthan has reported 1,868 cases, Tamil Nadu 1,629, Uttar Pradesh 1,449, and Madhya Pradesh 1,587 cases.
However, as a good news, all positive cases in Goa and Manipur are now negative.
In the meantime, a day after asking the States to halt conducting tests from Rapid testing kits, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that it has forwarded a protocol for using rapid antibody test to all States, and reiterated that antibody rapid tests are largely to be used as a tool for surveillance.
“Globally also, utility of this test is evolving and it is currently being used for detecting the formation of antibodies in individuals. These test results are also dependent on field conditions. As noted by ICMR, these tests cannot replace the RT-PCR test to diagnose Covid-19 cases,” it said in a statement.
ICMR has also assured assistance to collect data from various States to assess the scope and extent of utility of these rapid antibody tests in field conditions.
Meanwhile, following positive results from the convalescent plasma (CP) therapy in treatment of Covid-19 patients in some States, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has granted no objection for conduct of clinical trials for therapy as per protocol developed by ICMR.