Coronavirus Update | India logs 25,467 new COVID-19 cases, 354 deaths

Coronavirus Update | The death toll has climbed to 4,35,110 with 354 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

Moneycontrol News

August 24, 2021 / 10:02 IST

Zydus Cadila's COVID-19 vaccine ZyCoV-D has demonstrated 66.6 percent efficacy against symptomatic RT-PCR positive cases in the interim analysis.

India added 25,467 new COVID-19 cases, while the active cases declined to 3,19,551, comprising 0.98 percent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday.

The total tally of COVID-19 cases has increased to 3,24,74,773.

The death toll has climbed to 4,35,110 with 354 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The active cases were the lowest in 156 days, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has increased to 97.68 percent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.

A reduction of 14373 cases has been recorded in the total number of active COVID-19 cases in a span of 24 hours.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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