More on Covid-19

No community transmission in the country yet: Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan

NEW DELHI: Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Thursday said faulty antibody testing kits will be returned to the respective countries, whether it is China or any other nation.Dr Vardhan and MoS Health and Family Welfare, Ashwini Choubey, held a meeting via video conferencing with state health ministers today, to review the actions on Covid-19 management.While addressing the ministers, Dr Vardhan said, "Faulty antibody testing kits will be returned if they don't work properly, whether they belong to China or any other country. We have not paid for the kits yet.""Wherever there is a need, we have also sent our senior officers to support you, they are not sent as monitors. They are there for hand-holding and cooperation so we get feedback on how to further extend help," the Union Health Minister told states."Almost three and a half months have passed while fighting against Covid-19. All states are doing well. India is the only country in the world that has reported fewer cases among all other countries," he added.Dr Vardhan added that India has around three per cent mortality rate of Covid-19."We are on the right track to deal with Covid-19, just be confident. All Health Ministers should monitor themselves. We have not entered the third stage of transmission because it has been controlled by the help of all the states," said Dr Vardhan.He added that many states like Uttar Pradesh are handling the Covid-19 situation very strongly. The Union health minister also praised chief minister Yogi Adityanath for handling the situation.India's coronavirus case count has reached 23,077, with 1,684 more Covid-19 cases reported in the last 24 hours, as per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday.Out of these, 17,610 patients are active cases and 4,749 cases have been cured or discharged and migrated. As many as 718 deaths have been reported till now.