Cases near 30,000 mark, death toll at 937

NEW DELHI, Apr 28
As India observes the last week of the 40-day Nationwide lockdown, which is scheduled to end on May 3, 2020, the total number of novel coronavirus cases in the country rose to 29,974 today after adding 1,594 fresh Covid-19 patients in the last 24 hours, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data. In addition to that, the death toll also increased by 51 to 937, it said.
Currently, there are 22,010 active Covid-19 patients, while 7,026 people have been discharged or cured from the highly contagious disease.
Speaking at the press briefing today, Lav Aggrawal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health said that till Tuesday morning, as many as 6,868 Covid-19 patients, which is 23.3% of total cases, have recovered so far. He also added, "No new cases of coronavirus reported from 17 districts in last 28 days." In addition to that, the doubling rate of Covid-19 cases now stands at 10.2 days.
Talking about the treatment of coronavirus using plasma therapy, Aggrawal informed,"Currently there are no approved therapies, including plasma therapy, for the treatment of the virus. Plasma therapy is in experimental stage but not enough evidence now to claim it can be used as treatment for Covid-19."
The Health Ministry official also added that Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has launched National-level study to study efficacy of plasma therapy in treatment of the virus. However, Aggrawal also said, "Until ICMR concludes its study and a robust scientific proof is available, plasma therapy should be used only for research or trial purpose. If plasma therapy is not used in proper manner under proper guideline then it can also cause life threatening complication and its use for treatment right now will also be illegal."
Meanwhile, according to the evening numbers from the health ministry, Maharashtra remained the worst hit State with total number of positive cases rising to 8,590, followed by Gujarat at 3,548 cases, Delhi at 3,108 cases and Madhya Pradesh at 2,368 cases, according to the data. Uttar Pradesh was the latest State to cross more than 2,000 confirmed coronavirus cases.         Livemint