AHMEDABAD, (India): India’s total Covid-19 caseload surged past 25 million on Tuesday as a powerful cyclone complicated the health crisis in the western states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, already among the hardest hit by a second wave of the pandemic.
Covid-19 tests were administered to 200,000 people evacuated from coastal districts of Gujarat before the cyclone struck late on Monday and efforts were being made to try to limit any spread of infections.
“Masks have been arranged for people shifted to shelter homes,” said Sandip Sagale, a top official in Ahmedabad, the main city in Gujarat.
“Efforts are also made to maintain social distancing.”
India’s total tally of coronavirus cases now stands at 25.23 million, health ministry data showed, following 263,533 new infections over the past 24 hours, while fatalities rose by a record 4,329. The official total death toll is 278,719.
The government said about 98% of India’s population of 1.3 billion remained susceptible to infections.
Only the United States has had more cases, or a worse single day death toll, when it lost 5,444 people on Feb. 12. But whereas the epidemic there peaked months ago, there is no certainty that India’s infections have.
Though the official count shows new infections subsiding, there are fears that the new, highly infectious B.1.617 variant, first found in India, is out of control and that many cases are going unreported due to lack of testing.
Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state, has suffered a 30% increase in infections since May 2, while the total number of vaccinations it administered last week was just 1.1 million - half the total of a month earlier.
India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, halted exports a month ago after donating or selling more than 66 million doses, and government sources told Reuters it was unlikely to resume major exports of vaccines until at least October to prioritise domestic needs. The Serum Institute, India’s largest vaccine producer, said it would continue to scale up its production of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine and start exporting to other countries by the end of the year.