India records over 2.81 lakh new COVID-19 cases, 4,106 fatalities in 24 hours

New Delhi: India recorded over 2.81 lakh new COVID-19 cases and 4,106 fatalities in the last 24 hours, as per the Union Health Ministry on Monday (May 17, 2021) morning.

According to the official data, there were 2,81,386 new infections, which took the country's total caseload to 2.49 crore. Maharashtra registered the highest daily new cases at 34,389, followed by Tamil Nadu with 33,181 new cases and Karnataka at 31,531.

India now has 35,16,997 active COVID-19 cases and as per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, ten states cumulatively account for 75.04% of the country's total active coronavirus cases.

The country's coronavirus-related death toll has now increased to 2,74,390, while the total number of recoveries has crossed 2.11 crore.

Around 3.78 lakh people recovered from the virus in the last 24 hours, and the National Recovery Rate has now improved to 84.81%. From the past few days, the country going through the second wave of coronavirus has witnessed a declining trend in the weekly positivity rate and as of Monday morning, it stands at 18.17% 

Earlier on Sunday, there were 3,11,170 new COVID-19 cases and 4,077 deaths in India.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan along with Member (Health), NITI Aayog Vinod K Paul had chaired a high-level video conference meeting on Sunday with all the states and UTs. The focus of the meet was on COVID-19 Containment & Management in peri-urban, rural and tribal areas along with the Effective Clinical Management of COVID, including the black Mucor-mycosis fungi which is being recorded in a growing number of states. 

The meeting was held as the rural hinterland of the country recording a very high number of cases with increasing fatality and positivity rate, combined with low reported levels of testing.

Meanwhile, India's fight against the coronavirus is going to get stronger as the country will be releasing the first batch of the anti-COVID-19 drug 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) on Monday. It will be released by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

The 2-DG drug has been developed by DRDO's Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS) in collaboration with Dr Reddy`s Laboratories. 

Clinical trial results have shown that this molecule helps in faster recovery of hospitalised patients and reduces supplemental oxygen dependence and that the higher proportion of patients treated with 2-DG showed RT-PCR negative conversion in COVID-19 patients.