India’s Coronavirus death toll crossed the 1000-mark and the total number of infections topped 31,000 on Wednesday.

The country recorded a total of 31,332 cases of which 22,629 are active, while 7,695 have been cured. A total of 1,007 people have died of the deadly infection.

73 people have died in the last 24 hours, recording the biggest jump in the number of deaths in a day.

Meanwhile, 12 more Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel deployed in Delhi were declared coronavirus positive on Tuesday, taking the number of infected force personnel to 46 across the country.

All the 12 personnel belong to the 31st Battalion of the CRPF and are deputed in Mayur Vihar in East Delhi. They are quarantined at a Delhi government centre in Mandawali which is a few kilometres from the base of their battalion.

A 55-year-old Sub-Inspector of the 3.5 lakh strong central paramilitary force had earlier died of Coronavirus.

Maharashtra remains the worst-hit state with the total number of cases at 9,318, with 400 deaths and 1,388, followed by Gujarat which has reported 3,744 cases and 181 fatalities so far. Delhi is the third worst-hit state with 3,314 cases and 54 deaths, according to the Health Ministry data.

The other states which have seen sharp rise in cases are Madhya Pradesh (2,387), Rajasthan (2,364), Tamil Nadu (2,058) and Uttar Pradesh (2,053).

Among other major states, Andhra Pradesh has reported 1,259 while 31 have died, Bihar stood at 366 cases and two deaths, Haryana 310 and three deaths, Jammu and Kashmir at 565 cases and eight deaths, Karnataka at 523 and 20 deaths and Kerala was docked at 485 cases and four deaths.

States which have reported less than 10 cases are Tripura, Mizoram, Puducherry, Manipur, Goa and Arunachal Pradesh.

On Tuesday, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan had said that that the doubling rate of COVID-19 cases has slowed to 10.9 in the last three days, and termed the observation as a “significant progress”.

He further stated that no fresh case of COVID-19 coronavirus has been reported in 80 districts in the last seven days.

Meanwhile, the Government has said that there is “no evidence to support plasma therapy as a treatment” for the deadly Coronavirus infection.

In a press briefing on Tuesday, Ministry of Health, Joint Secretary, Lav Aggarwal said that plasma therapy is not a proven treatment for COVID-19 and that it is still in the experimental stage, where the ICMR is carrying it out as an experiment to identify and gain additional understanding of the therapy.

Until ICMR concludes its study and a robust scientific proof is available, plasma therapy should be used only for research or trial purpose, the health ministry official asserted. He further warned that if plasma therapy is not used in a proper manner under proper guidelines, then it can cause life-threatening complications.

This comes as several states across the country are considering the use of plasma therapy to treat critically-ill COVID-19 patients after the treatment showed positive results in a few patients in Delhi.

Meanwhile, the novel Coronavirus has infected more than 3 million people globally and led to over 2 lakh deaths.

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