India's COVID-19 tally surpasses 5.9 million

Shuriah Niazi

NEW DELHI (AA) - India’s coronavirus count crossed the 5.9 million mark Saturday with 85,362 news cases, according to the data released by the Ministry of Health.

The death toll stands at 93,379 with 1,089 deaths in the past 24 hours, health officials said.

The Indian Council of Medical Research said 1,341,535 tests were conducted Friday and more than 70 million tests have been conducted in India.

King Edward Memorial Hospital in Mumbai will administer, as part of a human trial, Oxford University's Covishield vaccine for the coronavirus Saturday, said hospital Dean Hemant Deshmukh.

Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan said the health care system has shown great efficiency in not only providing diagnostic and management facilities but also keeping the mortality at a minimum and recovery at maximum.

“India’s continuously rising Recovery Rate and progressively falling Case Fatality Rate have proven the success of the COVID-19 containment strategy. We have successfully ramped up our testing capacity which has touched nearly 1.5 million milestone today with more than 1800 testing labs spread across the country,” he said.

He added that he has confidence in scientific developments taking place in treatment and vaccines for COVID-19 and soon India will achieve more success in the fight against the virus.