India's COVID-19 Case Exceeds 24 Million As Virus Variants Spread To The World

ILLUSTRATION/PIXABAY

JAKARTA - The number of COVID-19 infections recorded in India has risen beyond 24 million cases amid reports of the highly contagious coronavirus that was first detected in the country, spreading worldwide.

A variant of India's B.1.617 virus has been found in cases in eight countries in the Americas, including Canada and the United States, said Jairo Mendez, a World Health Organization (WHO) infectious disease expert.

People infected by the variant include travelers in Panama and Argentina who come from India or Europe. In the Caribbean, cases of the Indian variant have been detected in Aruba, Dutch St Maarten, and the French-owned Guadeloupe region. Mutant strains have also been detected in the UK, as well as in Singapore.

"This variant has greater contagion capabilities, but so far we have not found any collateral consequences. The only concern is that they spread faster," Mendez told Reuters on Friday, May 14.

Public health agency England said the total number of confirmed cases of the variant had more than doubled in the past week to 1,313 cases across the UK.

"We are anxious about that variant - it has spread," said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who added that there would be a meeting to discuss what to do.

"We don't rule anything out," Johnson said.

According to health ministry data, India recorded 4,000 deaths and 343,144 cases in the last 24 hours. It was the third day in a row of 4,000 deaths or more, but daily infections remained below last week's peak of 414,188.

While the total number of infections recorded exceeds 24 million cases, the number of people confirmed to have died due to COVID-19 reached 262,317 since the pandemic first hit India more than a year ago.

But experts say the actual figure could be five to ten times higher due to a lack of testing in many places.

Bhramar Mukherjee, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, said most models had predicted the peak of COVID-19 infections in India to occur this week and that the country could see signs of such a trend.

However, the number of new cases every day is large enough to overwhelm the hospital, he said on Twitter on Thursday (13/5).

"The key word is cautious optimism."

The second wave of infections, which erupted in February, was accompanied by a slowdown in vaccinations, although Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that vaccinations would be open to all adults starting May 1.

India is the world's largest vaccine manufacturer but its supply is running low due to huge demand. As of Thursday, India had fully vaccinated more than 38.2 million people, or about 2.8 percent of the total population of about 1.35 billion people, according to government data.

More than 2 billion doses of the coronavirus vaccine are likely to be available in India between August and December this year, said the government's chief adviser VK Paul, amid criticism that the government had mishandled vaccination plans.

These doses include 750 million AstraZeneca vaccines, as well as 550 million doses of Covaxin made by Bharat Biotech.

"We are going through a phase of supply limitations. The whole world is going through this. It takes time to get out of this phase," Paul said.