Monsoon session: Battle against coronavirus is far from over, says Harsh Vardhan in Parliament

New Delhi, Sep 15: Union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday said that the battle against the novel coronavirus pandemic is far from over. Speaking in the Upper House, the health minister said that government is taking all necessary measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

"I want to remind the members that battle against Covid-19 is far from over. I wish to inform the house that government is taking all necessary measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in India," said Vardhan.

The health minister also said that India has been able to limit its cases and deaths per million to 3,320 and 55 respectively, which is one of the lowest in the world.

"COVID-19 testing is about 1 million tests per day which translates to 720 tests per million population per day, much higher than that stipulated by WHO which 140 tests per million per day. A total of 5,51,89,226 samples were tested as of September 11," the health minister said.

Harsh Vardhan's remark comes on a day when India inched closer to the five million-mark on COVID-19 tally. However, the daily case count fell below 90,000.

On Monday, the health minister had said that the central government undertook the COVID-19 challenge with the highest level of political commitment.

"It has been estimated that its decisions prevented approximately 14-29 lakh cases and 37-78 thousand deaths," he had said.