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DPA
New Delhi
A total of 109 people have died of COVID-19 in India, with 32 fatalities and 693 fresh cases in the past 24 hours alone, government data released on Monday showed.
The figures released by the Federal Health Ministry take the number of positive cases in India past the 4,000-mark to 4,067. India has registered an increase of 500-plus cases in the four days since Friday.
Health Ministry officials said more than 1,000 cases were connected to a religious gathering organized by Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic missionary movement in New Delhi, last month.
Senior health ministry official Lav Agarwal said the number of COVID-19 cases in India was doubling every 4.1 days and that rate could have been slower at 7.1 days had the Delhi mosque event - attended by thousands from India and abroad - not taken place.
Addressing his party workers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India has been proactive in combating the pandemic including declaring a nationwide lockdown, but the battle against the virus would be a long one.
“It is going to be a long haul, we do not have to tire, our resolve and mission are to merge victorious in the fight against the pandemic,” Modi said on the foundation day of his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
He urged BJP workers to help out in the national effort, including working to ensure that no poor person goes hungry.
Modi also spoke with top opposition leaders including Sonia Gandhi, who leads the Indian National Congress, on the crisis and the nationwide lockdown.
Meanwhile, India is rethinking a recent ban on the export of hydroxychloroquine, an inexpensive malaria drug that US President Donald Trump has touted as a possible game changer in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, officials said on Monday.
The move - announced by India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) on Saturday - came on the same day as Trump made a request to facilitate the supplies of the drug during a telephone call to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
New Delhi
A total of 109 people have died of COVID-19 in India, with 32 fatalities and 693 fresh cases in the past 24 hours alone, government data released on Monday showed.
The figures released by the Federal Health Ministry take the number of positive cases in India past the 4,000-mark to 4,067. India has registered an increase of 500-plus cases in the four days since Friday.
Health Ministry officials said more than 1,000 cases were connected to a religious gathering organized by Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic missionary movement in New Delhi, last month.
Senior health ministry official Lav Agarwal said the number of COVID-19 cases in India was doubling every 4.1 days and that rate could have been slower at 7.1 days had the Delhi mosque event - attended by thousands from India and abroad - not taken place.
Addressing his party workers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India has been proactive in combating the pandemic including declaring a nationwide lockdown, but the battle against the virus would be a long one.
“It is going to be a long haul, we do not have to tire, our resolve and mission are to merge victorious in the fight against the pandemic,” Modi said on the foundation day of his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
He urged BJP workers to help out in the national effort, including working to ensure that no poor person goes hungry.
Modi also spoke with top opposition leaders including Sonia Gandhi, who leads the Indian National Congress, on the crisis and the nationwide lockdown.
Meanwhile, India is rethinking a recent ban on the export of hydroxychloroquine, an inexpensive malaria drug that US President Donald Trump has touted as a possible game changer in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, officials said on Monday.
The move - announced by India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) on Saturday - came on the same day as Trump made a request to facilitate the supplies of the drug during a telephone call to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
