New Delhi: Director General of India's apex medical research institute ICMR Dr Balram Bhargava on Tuesday said that in few cases of coronavirus, reactions occurred among patients due to plasma treatment.
"Plasma therapy is in use for more than 100 years for several diseases. It's being studied by different countries. In many countries, it did yield good results. However, ICMR study shows that it does not help in reducing the mortality and containing the spread of disease. But, we believe more study needs to be done. The latest findings of ICMR will be thoroughly examined by the joint monitoring group," said Dr Bhargava. The statement given by Dr Bhargava comes amid demand by several state governments for plasma treatment.
Speaking about COVID vaccine, Dr Bhargava said that vaccine candidate of Zydus Cadila and Bharat Biotech have successfully completed Phase I trial. "Their recruitment of volunteers for phase II trial have been completed. The phase II trial is under process," he said.
As far as Russian vaccine is concerned, Dr Bhargava said, "Phase I and II trial of the Russian vaccine shows promising results. We are in talks with the Russian government for the phase III trial but before that the drug controller authority need to give the clearance, "
Referring to COVID reinfection in India, the ICMR DG said that reinfection chance are very rare. He also said said that the results of the second national sero survey will be released soon. Referring to a spike in COVID cases in India, Dr Bhargava said that due to the different counter measures adopted by the government "we did not have a massive rise in numbers."
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Talking about the present status of COVID in India, Rajesh Bhushan, secretary in the Health Ministry said "All the states and UTs have been asked to ensure that people who show symptoms after antigen test but their results are negative, should undergo RT PCT tests. This will stop the transmission of the disease," said Bhushan.
Bhushan reiterated that five states including Maharastra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu account more than 60 percent of the active cases in the country. "All the states have been witnessing spike in COVID cases every week," he added.
Bhushan also informed that few states have also been reporting maximum deaths in last few weeks. From September 9-15, Maharastra witnessed 409 daily average fatalities, followed by Karnataka 121, Uttar Pradesh 73, Andhra Pradesh 69 and Tamil Nadu 72. He, however, said that India is one of the countries witnessing low cases per million population.
"India has been witnessing 3573 cases per million population against the world average of 3704. Peru witness highest cases per million population with 21,922, Brazil 20,303 and USA 19,416. India registered 58 deaths per million population against the world average of 118," said Bhushan.
India till Tuesday registered 38,59,499 recoveries (78.28 percent), 9,90,061 active cases (20.08 percent) and 80,776 deaths (1.64 percent).
He said that on an average more than 10 lakh tests are being conducted in India at present. Delhi conducted 2,268,637 tests with a positivity rate of 8.9 percent, Odisha conducted 2,495,242 tests with a positivity rate of 6.2 percent and West Bengal conducted 2,554,114 tests with a positivity rate of 8.1 percent.
Meanwhile, government records shows that 100 personnel of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) have died due to COVID disease against a total positive case of 25418. Rs 15 lakh through "Bharat Ke Veer" funds is being provided to the kin of deceased personnel who were infected by COVID.
