India once again world’s second most coronavirus affected country
New Delhi, Apr 12 (EFE).- India surpassed Brazil on Monday as the second most coronavirus-affected nation, with more than 13.5 million total cases, amid a second wave of the disease in the country, which is spreading faster than the first.
According to the Health Ministry, in the last 24 hours, more than 168,000 new cases were confirmed, the highest since the beginning of the pandemic and marking the sixth consecutive day of record daily infections.
India has now registered a total 13,527,717 million cases, which only behind the United States (31.1 million) and overtaking Brazil (13.4 million).
The number of deaths in the last 24 hours was 904, bringing the total number to 170,179 in just over a year since the pandemic broke out.
Before the second wave of infections, the highest rate of infections in this nation of 1,350 million inhabitants was recorded in September last year, when it tested some 100,000 positive cases regularly.
This time, India hopes its vaccination campaign, which seeks to immunize the vulnerable population over the age of 45, will serve to protect most people from severe impact of the disease.
Saturday marked the administration of more than 100 million doses of the vaccine in 85 days of the campaign, as the government pushes of inoculating maximum number of people in the shortest possible time.
The Indian authorities, however, are still a long way off from their own target of immunizing 300 million people by July, which would mean covering twice as many people vaccinated so far in the same period. EFE
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