Active COVID-19 cases in India fall below 30,000, but Centre asks states to step up surveillance efforts

India has reported 2,528 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, while the active cases in the country fell below 30,000.

The fresh tally takes the total number of confirmed coronavirus infections in the country to 4,30,04,005.

A total of 149 new deaths due to the infectious disease were also recorded, raising the number of COVID-19 fatalities to 5,16,281. Of these new deaths, 123 were backlog deaths reported by Kerala as part of its data reconciliation exercise.

Kerala, at 7, also reported the highest coronavirus related deaths in the last 24 hours, followed by Haryana which registered 3 fatalities in a day. Majority of the states and UTs, however, did not report any COVID-19 deaths during the period.

The country’s active caseload has now come down to 29,181, down 1,618 from the previous day and active cases constitute of 0.07 percent of the total confirmed cases. Kerala, at 7,822, has the highest active COVID-19 caseload in India.

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In the 24-hour period, a total of 3,997 recoveries were added taking the total recoveries to 4,24, 58,543 while the recovery rate touched 98.73 percent.

India’s daily COVID-19 test positivity rate has now reached 0.40 percent while the rolling average of the weekly positivity rate is also exactly the same.

A total of 6,33, 867 tests were carried out in the 24-hour period to detect the fresh infections, taking the total tally of tests to 78.18 crore.

Meanwhile, in a letter issued to states on Thursday, health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that as resurgence in fresh COVID-19 cases is being observed across Southeast Asia and some nations in Europe, there should be aggressive and intensified genome sequencing and sustained surveillance.

“States should also ensure that adequate number of samples are submitted to INSACOG network through sentinel sites as per the protocol issued by National Centre for Disease Control,” said the letter issued to state health secretaries.

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This will ensure timely detection of new variants while maintaining adequate testing as per the Indian Council of Medical Research protocol, it added.

The latest advisory to states comes following a high-level meeting chaired by Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya on March 16.