India surpassed this Thursday for the first time the barrier of 200,000 daily cases of COVID-19 , a new peak in this second wave of infections in the Asian country that surpasses its infection records day after day, while the vaccination campaign advances as only apparent way out of this crisis.
Specifically, 200 739 new infections were registered in the last 24 hours, raising the total since the beginning of the pandemic to 14 million, which maintains India as the second most affected nation behind the United States (with 31 million) .
It also surpassed a thousand deaths on the last day, 1038, which has left scenes of overcrowded morgues or corpses outside hospitals, while cremation spaces continue to be oversaturated in a country that already counts 173 123 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
Some regions such as western Maharashtra, the most affected of all, have already imposed harsh restrictions, close to total confinement, enabling only the movement of certain professional groups seen as fundamental.
The Ministry of Health reported today in a statement that to “avoid panic” about the availability of oxygen in health centers to treat coronavirus patients, several measures have been taken that will guarantee its supply throughout the country.
Among these measures, he announced that oxygen production capacity has been increased to 100%, in addition to using the reserves of steel factories, or facilitating transport between the least affected regions to those most in need.
TESTS AND VACCINES
The authorities continue to stress that one of the keys to trying to control this second wave, which has soared from the hopeful fewer than 9,000 cases a day in February, is to increase tests to detect and isolate those infected.
So far, India has carried out some 262 million tests since the start of the pandemic, 1.4 million in the last day, something that is insufficient in cities like New Delhi, where private centers that did tests at home in less than 24 hours ago less than a month, they now have waiting lists of up to four days.
As the only long-term solution to this crisis, what is known as the largest vaccination campaign in the world is presented, with more than 114 million doses administered since its launch in January, of which 3.3 million were delivered in the last day.
So far, India manufactures and uses only two antidotes against covid: Covishield, from the British-Swedish laboratory AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, which is produced thanks to an agreement with the Serum Institute of India (SII); and the indigenous Covaxin, from the Indian laboratory Bharat Biotech.
To these two will be added the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, which this week obtained approval for its emergency use in India and, in addition to being the first formula that can be imported, it will begin to manufacture in the country through five factories with the goal of producing 850 million doses per year.
“The Government must take urgent measures to boost the manufacturing capacity (of vaccines),” the Indian Scientists Network (AIPSN) insisted in a statement, seeing current resources as insufficient.