India's official tally of daily infections of coronavirus fell to the lowest in nearly six weeks in the past 24 hours, offering hope that a devastating second wave is ebbing, but government leaders said shortages of vaccines were a big concern.

Barely 3% of the country's 1.3 billion people have been vaccinated, the lowest rate among the 10 countries with the most Covid-19 cases, leaving India and its ill-equipped healthcare system vulnerable to a potential third wave, experts said.

The Serum Institute of India, which is supplying the AstraZeneca vaccine, and local firm Bharat Biotech which is providing Covaxin, have both said they are ramping up production but the supply remains way short of the millions of doses India needs.

Yesterday, the country posted 196,427 new coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours, its lowest daily rise in infections since April 14, and less than half the 414,188 peak reported on May 7.

However, India's eight north eastern states, half of which share borders with Bangladesh, are reporting a steep rise in cases in the last two weeks, sparking fears that the entire region could be the next hot spot of the virus, officials said yesterday.

The country's overall officially recorded case load since the start of the pandemic now stands at 26.95 million.

There are serious concerns that many new infections are not being reported, due to a dearth of testing in the countryside, where the virus has spread to from the cities.

Deaths due to Covid-19 amounted to 3,511 in the last 24 hours, bringing the total since the pandemic first stuck over a year ago to 307,231, according to health ministry data.

Experts believe that grossly underestimates the actual toll as only people who have tested positive are counted, whereas many victims were never tested.

The Economist magazine's excess-deaths model estimates that around a million people have died of Covid-19 in India so far, way above the 590,240 in the United States, which is the worst hit country based on official counts.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the B.1.617 variant has become the dominating Covid-19 mutant in India accounting for around 55% of total "variants of concern" (VoC) detected in the country through genome sequencing so far.

Of the total 25,739 positive samples sequenced by INSACOG till Monday morning, 9,508 samples have been found to have VoC. The B.1.617 variant - which was first detected in Maharashtra and found to have high transmissibility - was found in 5,261 samples, making it one of the most common mutations detected till now, reports TOI.

 "We have ensured that a sentinel surveillance system and a strategy has been put in place. States have been requested to regularly send samples for whole genome sequencing regularly," Vardhan said.

DRUGMAKERS REBUFF STATES

In desperation, several Indian state governments and even cities such as Mumbai have launched global tenders or sought expressions of interest from firms such as Pfizer , Moderna and Johnson and Johnson for urgent supplies.

But Delhi's deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said the three firms told them they were in touch with the federal Indian government and that they will not be dealing with state level authorities.

Sisodia blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government for mishandling vaccine procurement and not moving fast enough to secure supplies for the country.

"It is a global blunder," said Sisodia, whose Aam Aadmi Party is bitterly opposed to Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The northern state of Punjab also said over the weekend its efforts to directly source supplies had been rebuffed by the foreign vaccine manufacturers. The hill state of Uttarakhand extended its global tender till the end of the month after failing to get any bid, local media reported yesterday.

"The vaccination drive is in shambles and people are suffering and despairing," Anand Sharma, a leader of the main opposition Congress said, urging Modi to put aside politics and work with state governments to help them procure vaccines.

Pfizer said it was in talks with the Indian government to supply its vaccine, which has still to be cleared by India's drug regulator.

"Pfizer remains committed to continuing our engagement with the government of India towards making the Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine available for use in the country," a spokeswoman told Reuters, declining to provide details of the ongoing discussions.

Meanwhile, six presidents of Latin American and Caribbean countries called Monday on the international community for equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines, asking those countries with the most doses to share them.

"We strongly appeal to countries which have a surplus of doses or which have already vaccinated their populations at risk, to implement measures so that these surpluses are distributed equitably and immediately," said a joint statement issued by Costa Rica's President Carlos Alvarado.

New Zealand suspended quarantine-free travel with Australia's Victoria state over a new coronavirus cluster yesterday, the fourth time the trans-Tasman travel bubble has been disrupted since it opened last month.

The pandemic has killed more than 3,475,079 people worldwide since the virus first emerged in December 2019, according to an AFP compilation of official data yesterday.