India, World's Largest Vaccine Producer, Hits 25 Million COVID-19 Cases

(Photo : Getty Images/Abhishek Chinnappa)
MYSURU, INDIA - MAY 18: Sunitha KN, 40, an accredited social health activist (ASHA), checks the identity card of an individual before inoculating him with AstraZeneca-Oxford's Covishield vaccine against Covid-19 at a public health centre (PHC) on May 18, 2021 in Mysuru, Karnataka, India. There are some 860,000 ASHA workers in India, local media figures show, working at the front lines of the pandemic in villages and towns in many parts of rural India where medical infrastructure is sparse and doctors are scarce. ASHA workers, who wear pink sarees for uniforms, are paid a monthly salary of around 4,000 Indian Rupees (55 dollars). Many workers like Sunitha complain that they have not been paid their salary for months. India's prolonged and debilitating wave of Covid-19 infections has reached deep into rural India, where the true extent of devastation may never be known because of a lack of widespread testing or reliable data.

On India's deadliest day of the pandemic, the country crossed a grave milestone of having 25 million COVID-19 cases. It is witnessing the second wave of infection further aggravated as response efforts have been made more difficult by Tropical Cyclone Tauktae. The cyclone made landfall in Gujarat on Monday evening.

India's tally of novel coronavirus cases was boosted by 263,533 new cases in the last 24 hours. Fatalities from the coronavirus rose by a record of 4,387.

Tropical Cyclone Tauktae Complicating Things further in India

According to the India Meteorological Department, the tropical cyclone Tauktae was the strongest to hit the region in over two decades, with sustained winds of 103 mph. It hit the states of Kerala, Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra the hardest. The country recorded at least 20 fatalities and 125 missing at sea due to the cyclone. The storm knocked out the electricity at Goa, reported ABC News.

COVID-19 tests were administered to about 200,000 people who fled from coastal districts of the western state of Gujarat before the cyclone arrived late on Monday. Efforts were being made to attempt to limit the prevalence of infections. According to Sandip Sagale, a top official in Ahmedabad, the main city in Gujarat, face masks have been arranged for people shifted to shelter homes.

The current recorded of COVID-19 cases in India is thought to be large undercount as COVID-19 spreads to more rural areas with less healthcare capacity and testing. As India's tally edges closer to that of the United States, several Asian nations continue to tackle their new surges, including Taiwan, which is experiencing its largest outbreak of the pandemic, reported CIDRAP.

India has recorded the third-highest total of fatalities in the globe, behind the US and Brazil. In India, the total of variants, the so-called double mutants that were initially detected in the country, has increased as the proportion of the highly infectious UK mutant has diminished, reported Kyodo News.

According to state officials, all evacuees have been tested for the virus, and efforts are being made to maintain physical distancing in the shelters. However, the scale of the evacuation will possibly make this a significant bout. The severe storm has affected the state's health care system, which was already experiencing a COVID-19 surge as hospitals await additional oxygen supplies and backup generators to keep power running.

The enduring surge in cases during the second wave elevated all projections regarding India's COVID-19 trajectory. It turned the country into the global epicenter of the virus.

Experts caution that both the total of fatalities and total reported cases are possibly vast undercounts. Cases in India have surged since February in a devastating turn blamed on further contagious variants and government decisions to enable massive crowds to gather for political rallies and religious gatherings.