India contains spread of Covid-19

India's health minister yesterday declared its Covid-19 epidemic contained as, with most of the country's active patients concentrated in two states, a fifth of districts completed a week with no new cases.

However, an inoculation campaign touted by the government as the world's biggest is progressing unevenly, with a survey showing more than half of Indians reluctant to get vaccinated immediately.

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The country of 1.35 billion has recorded the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world after the United States and, with the likely true rate of infection even higher, one study suggests pockets of India have attained herd immunity through natural infection.

Since peaking in mid-September at close to 100,000 daily cases, the infection rate has slowed significantly. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said 11,666 cases were reported in the past 24 hours.

"India has successfully contained the pandemic," he said in a statement. "India has flattened its Covid-19 graph."

Vardhan said 146 of India's 718 districts had had no new cases for a week.

India has around 173,000 active Covid-19 patients, more than two-thirds of them in Kerala and Maharashtra states. It has reported 10.7 million infections and 153,847 deaths - one of the world's lowest fatality rates, attributed partly to its relatively young population.