VACCINE TRIAL IN WUHAN SHOWS PROMISE, BUT A LONG WAY TO GO

MUMBAI : Maharashtra on Saturday continued its grim trend of more than 2,000 Covid-19 cases in a day — the seventh in a row — with 2,608 fresh infections, taking the state’s tally to 47,190.

The state also reported 60 more deaths, bringing the toll to 1,577.

Also on Saturday, Covid-19 cases in India saw the highest single-day spike for the second consecutive day with 6,413 new infections reported in a 24-hour span, taking the tally to over 1.29 lakh, while the death toll rose to 3,795 after 143 more fatalities.

Mumbai, the worst-hit city in the country, reported 1,566 new infections and 40 deaths over the past 24 hours, taking its tally to 28,817 and death toll to 949. In a bleak first, Mumbai recorded more than 1,000 cases per day over the past week. The state recorded 16,650 cases and 342 deaths in the past week at an average of 2,379 cases and 68 deaths a day. In Mumbai, the past week saw 10,262 cases at a daily average of 1,466 cases and 253 deaths at a daily average of 36.

Of the day’s 60 deaths, 40 were in Mumbai, 14 in Pune, two in Solapur, one each in Vasaii-Virar, Thane, Nanded and Satara. The state health department has, however, clarified that of the total deaths, 42 were in the past 24 hours, while the remaining were over the past fortnight.

Twenty-nine of the patients who died were above 60 years of age, while 24 were in the age group of 40 to 59 years and the remaining were below the age of 40 years. Thirty-six of them had high-risk comorbidities, including diabetes, hypertension and heart ailments.

The month of May saw 36,692 cases and 1,118 deaths in Maharashtra, which included 21,756 cases and 659 deaths in Mumbai. This means 77.75% cases and 70.897% deaths in the state have happened in the past 23 days. The first case of Covid-19 in the state was on March 9.

After having crossed 25,000 cases on May 13, the next 5,000 in the state were reported in just three days. The 40,000 mark was breached on May 21 in just five days and another 5,000 infections were amassed in just two days. On May 9, the state tally had touched 20,220. The state took 53 days for its first 10,000 cases.

State health minister Rajesh Tope said although cases are on a constant rise in the state, the mortality rate and ratio of cases is much better than many countries and Indian states.

“The number of cases per million in US is 4,483, UK 3,709, Spain 4,948, Italy 3,732, Germany 2,130, while in Maharashtra it’s 332. Our number of patients is rising and there is no point denying it. It is because the containment in densely populated areas like Mumbai and MMR is very difficult. But we are prepared to face it. We are augmenting the capacity of Covid Care Centres to 1 lakh beds, Dedicated Covid Centre Health Centres to 15,000 beds and ICU beds to 2,000 in Mumbai,” he said.

NEWDELHI: A vaccine for the SarsCov-2 virus developed by researchers at China’s CanSino Biologics was found to be safe and effective in its first test on humans, becoming the latest trial that raises hope for an early candidate that could help make people immune to Covid-19.

The result of CanSino’s Phase 1 trial, reported in The Lancet on Friday, is the first to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The Chinese researchers reported that their experimental vaccine produced neutralising antibodies — the type of immune cells that kill infected cells — and the rapid immune responses crucial for the body to mount its varied counter-attack. The trials were carried out with 108 healthy participants from Wuhan who were never infected by the virus.

The results are based on antibody and immune cell concentrations seen within 28 days of the vaccine being given to the participants in a low, medium or high dose. The ones given the high dose had the strongest immune response but also suffered from the most side-effects, such as high fever, fatigue and headache.››P6