New Delhi: The death toll due to the novel Coronavirus rose to 420 with 28 fatalities reported since Wednesday evening, while the number of cases saw a jump of 826 to go up to 12,759 cases on Thursday, according to the Union Health ministry.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 10,824 while as many as 1,514 people have been cured and discharged and one has migrated, it said. The total number of cases includes 76 foreign nationals.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Thursday the government was carrying out 24 tests for one positive case. "Japan tested 11.7 people per one positive; for Italy the number is 6.7, in the US it's 5.3; the UK it's 3.4. Here we do 24 tests for one positive. Can't say we are testing less," an ICMR official said. The ICMR also said rapid testing kits would not be used for diagnosis but for surveillance, especially in hotspots.
"Not all antibodies are such that they can fight the same infection for life; that's the case with chickenpox antibody; difficult to say whether the presence of antibody against COVID-19 gives immunity for life," Dr R R Gangakhedkar, ICMR, added.
In its daily briefing, the Union Health ministry said over 10,500 isolation beds had been made available by the Railways and 325 districts in the country had no cases of the virus. The government also added that India received the much-awaited five lakh rapid COVID-19 testing kits from China on Thursday.
Twenty-eight deaths have been reported since Wednesday evening, of which nine were reported from Maharashtra, six from Gujarat, five from Andhra Pradesh, and two each from Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
Of the total 420 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 187 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 53, Gujarat 36, Delhi 32 and Telangana 18. Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have reported 14 deaths each while Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka 13 deaths each.
Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health ministry said the fatality rate was much lower than the recovery rate in India and claimed there was no evidence on the effect of summer on the spread of the novel Coronavirus.
"Our case fatality rate is 3.3 per cent and percentage of people recovered is 11.8 per cent. Mahe, Patna, Nadia, Pratapgarh, Porbandar, South Goa, Pauri Gadwal, Pilibhit, Rajauri, Vilaspur Durg, Rajnandgaon are districts that have completed 28 days without reporting a single case," he said, adding that at least 325 districts had not reported any cases so far. The number of positive cases in Dharavi jumped to 86 after as many as 26 people tested positive for the infection on Thursday in the slum area of Mumbai, a civic official said.
With one more person succumbing to the infection on Thursday, the COVID-19 death toll in the slum reached nine, the official said.
"Eleven persons had tested positive earlier on Thursday, while 15 cases were detected later in the day. This took the day's tally of COVID-19 patients from Dharavi to 26," an official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.
"A 58-year-old man from Laxmi Chawl locality died due to COVID-19 on Thursday, which took the Dharavi death toll to nine," the official said.