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New Delhi : The number of Coronavirus (COVID-19) confirmed cases increased to 13,387 in India on April 17, 2020, evening, an increase of 1,007 new cases since April 16, 2020. As many as 1,766 patients have been cured/discharged in the country including 300 in Maharashtra, 245 in Kerala, 186 in Telangana, 180 in Tamilnadu, 164 in Rajasthan, 74 in UP, and 37 in Bihar. Coronavirus death toll in India increased to 452 at 5 pm on April 17, 2020, with 15 new deaths being reported since 8 am the same day.
Amongs the States/UTs, Maharashtra had reported 194 deaths till 5 pm on April 17 followed by MP with 57 deaths. Both Delhi and Gujarat have reported 38 deaths each due to Coronavirus till April 17 evening. Telangana has reported 18 deaths due to Coronavirus so far, Tamilnadu 15, Uattar Pradesh (UP) and Andhra Pradesh 14 each, Karnataka and Punjab 13 each, Rajasthan 11, West Bengal 10, J&K 4, Haryana and Kerala 3 each, Jharkhand 2, and Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Odisha, and Meghalaya 1 each.
Maharashtra has reported 3,205 COVID-19 confirmed cases followed by Delhi with 1,640 confirmed cases. Gujarat has reported 1,021 confirmed while MP has reported 1,308 confirmed cases. Tamilnadu has reported 1,267 confirmed cases, Rajasthan 1,131, UP 846, Telangana 743, and Andhra Pradesh 572, Kerala 395, Karnataka 353, and J&K 314 cases.
Bihar had reported 83 Coronavirus confirmed cases of which 37 patients were cured/discharged while Jharkhand has reported 29 confirmed cases cases.
The 12th meeting of Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 was held at Nirman Bhawan, here on April 17, 2020, under the chairpersonship of Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare. A detailed discussion was held by GoM on the impact of extended lockdown and to create a further roadmap. GoM also reviewed the efforts by Science & Technology institutions to deal with COVID-19 in diagnosis, vaccine, drugs, hospital equipment accessories, and general wellness.
GoM was apprised that as of now the death rate is around 3% while recovery rate is around 12%, which is comparatively better than most of the countries and may be taken as a positive effect of the Lockdown in the country along with the cluster management & containment strategy.
Department of Science & Technology, Department of Bio-Technology, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and Department of Atomic Energy (DEA) and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare are working together to: Create new rapid and accurate diagnostics that may give results within 30 minutes, Augment testing capacity through their 30 labs, Development of innovative pooling strategies to boost the number of people that can be tested, Indigenous synthesis of critical components that are limiting domestic test kit production, and Increase viral sequencing, which can help in epidemiology and to identify potentially important mutations, according to a PIB release.
Progress is also reported on vaccine development spanning inactivated virus, antibodies to major antigens, monoclonal, and RNA based vaccine. Convalescent plasma therapy has also been initiated on some sites.
The Government is working with global partners to ensure that effective vaccine can be developed and made available as soon as possible. India is a participant in the SOLIDARITY trial of the World Health Organization through which the effectiveness of these therapies is being determined. Scientific task forces are evaluating existing approved drugs and repurpose them for COVID-19. CSIR has progressed into an indigenous synthesis of multiple promising anti-viral molecules such as Umifenovir, Favipiravir. Phytopharmaceuticals and leads from traditional medical systems are also being explored in parallel along with Ministry of AYUSH.
Production of ancillary support devices such as personal protective equipment, oxygen concentrators, ventilators, CSIR engineering labs is being augmented by indigenous designs of Sree Chitra Tiurumalai Institute of Medical Science and Technology (SCTIMST) under DST. Indigenous manufacturing of RT-PCR kits has started and will produce 10 lakh kits per month from May 2020.
Production of Rapid Antibody detection kits will also start with a capacity of 10 lakh kits per month by May 2020. Five lakh Rapid Antibody test kits have been distributed in all States and Districts on the basis of high case burden. The present ventilator manufacturing capacity is 6,000 ventilators per month. Necessary efforts in areas of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccine are being monitored on a war footing by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Additionally, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has shared forecasting tools with States/District administrators for better planning of infrastructure across different COVID facilities based on the assessment of caseloads. Cumulatively, 1,919 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals having altogether 1,73,746 isolation beds and ICU beds 21,806 ICU beds have been identified at both Centre and State level.