India Records Over 44,000 New Coronavirus Cases

India has recorded 44,059 new cases of the novel coronavirus, taking its total to 9.14 million, data from the Health Ministry showed on Monday.

India has the second-highest number of infections in the world, after the United States, but the rate of increase in India has dipped since it hit a peak in September.

New daily cases have come in at fewer than 50,000 for more than two weeks, according to a Reuters tally.

Deaths rose by 511, according to the latest Health Ministry data, taking the total to 133,738.

Meanwhile, the Health Minister said on Sunday that a locally-developed COVID-19 vaccine candidate could complete its final trials in a month or two, raising hopes for a rapid roll-out in the country.

The state-run Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and privately-held Bharat Biotech this month started third-stage trials of COVAXIN, in a process that would involve 26,000 volunteers. It is the most advanced Indian experimental vaccine.

“We are in the process of developing our indigenous vaccines, in the process of completing our third-phase trials in the next one or two months,” Harsh Vardhan told a web conference on the pandemic.

He reiterated the government’s plan was to immunise 200 million to 250 million Indians by July 2021.

An ICMR scientist told Reuters earlier this month the vaccine could be launched in February or March 2021, although Bharat Biotech separately told Reuters on Friday that results of the late-stage trials were expected only between March and April.

Vardhan, however, said in September, that the government could opt for emergency vaccine authorisation, particularly for the elderly and people in high-risk workplaces.

Officials have said they expect to rely on COVAXIN and four other locally-tested candidates to control COVID-19, as they do not expect early access to sufficient quantities of those developed by Pfizer and Moderna.

The other experimental vaccines on trial in India are the one being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University that is being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India; Russia’s Sputnik-V; Zydus Cadila’s ZyCoV-D and lastly one that Biological E. Ltd is developing with Baylor College of Medicine and Dynavax Technologies Corp.