India registered a spike of 3,722 COVID-19 cases and 134 deaths on May 14, pushing the total number of cases to 78,003 and deaths to 2,549, according to the Union Health Ministry. Special care needed to be taken of the elderly, pregnant women and small children during the pandemic, it noted.
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The Ministry said in a release that the need of the hour was that all those who were either in home or facility quarantine should maintain strict vigil and practise the laid down protocols of social distancing and personal hygiene.
Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the last three days’ doubling time had slowed down to 13.9 days, while the doubling time in the past 14 days was 11.1 days.
“The COVID-19 fatality rate of the country currently stands at 3.2% and the recovery rate has further improved. Currently, we are at 33.6% [from 32.83% on Wednesday]. There are 3.0% active COVID-19 patients in ICU, 0.39% on ventilators and 2.7% on oxygen support,’’ he observed.
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On Thursday, there were 14 States/UTs (Union Territories) that had not reported any cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, including Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Chandigarh, Gujarat and Jharkhand, he stated.
The Ministry said, “So far, 26,235 persons have been cured”.
COBAS 6800 dedicated to nation
Dr. Vardhan on Thursday visited the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), here and dedicated COBAS 6800 testing machine to the nation.
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The Minister said in a release, “This is the first such testing machine that has been procured by the Government for testing of COVID-19 cases and is installed at NCDC. COBAS-6800, is a fully automated, high-end machine for performing real time PCR testing of COVID-19. It will provide quality, high-volume testing with a high throughput of test around 1200 samples in 24 hours. It will largely increase the testing capacity with reduction in pendency”.
Dr. Vardhan said COBAS 6800 was a sophisticated machine enabled with robotics that minimised the chance of contamination as well as the risk of infection to health care workers as it could be operated remotely with limited human intervention.
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“As the machine requires a minimum BSL2+ containment level for testing, it cannot be placed at just any facility. COBAS 6800 can also detect other pathogens like Viral Hepatitis B & C, HIV, MTb [both rifampicin and isoniazide resistance], Papilloma, CMV, Chlamydia, Neiserreia etc,’’ he added.
