Highlights: 10 States have almost 77% of active Covid cases in country: Centre

Anti-inflammatory colchicine will be tested as a possible Covid-19 treatment in one of the world's biggest trials, the study website posted on Friday, the latest effort to repurpose existing medicines to fight the pandemic. The recovery trial, which is the world's largest clinical trial of treatments for patients hospitalised with Covid-19, will randomly allocate at least 2,500 patients recruited to receive colchicine, which is used as a treatment for gout.

The Supreme Court Friday said states have to rise “above the politics” and harsh measures were required to be taken to contain the surge of Covid-19 as things have gone from “bad to worse”. The apex court also said there are policies, guidelines and standard operating procedures (SoP) for Covid-19 management in the country but there is lack of implementation by the authorities and no concrete steps have been taken to deal with the issue.

Bangladesh reported 2,273 new cases of Covid-19 and 20 more deaths, taking the tally of total cases to 458,711 and the death toll to 6,544. The official data showed that 16,378 samples were tested in the last 24 hours across Bangladesh.

The total number of recovered patients in the country stood at 373,676 including 2,223 new recoveries on Friday.

Suspected North Korean hackers have tried to break into the systems of British drugmaker AstraZeneca in recent weeks, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, as the company races to deploy its vaccine for the Covid-19 virus. The hackers posed as recruiters on networking site LinkedIn and WhatsApp to approach AstraZeneca staff with fake job offers, the sources said. They then sent documents purporting to be job descriptions that were laced with malicious code designed to gain access to a victim’s computer.

Australia's second-largest state, Victoria, once the country's Covid-19 hotspot, said on Friday it has gone 28 days without detecting any new infections, a benchmark widely cited as eliminating the virus from the community.

The state also has zero active cases after the last Covid-19 patient was discharged from hospital this week, a far cry from August when Victoria recorded more than 700 cases in one day and active infections totalled nearly 8,000.

Asymptomatic Covid-19 patients are driving a surge in new cases in South Korea, frustrating efforts to control transmission by the East Asian country which managed to keep infections under control in previous outbreaks. South Korea reported 569 new cases in the 24 hours, a level unseen in nearly nine months, as it grapples with the third wave of the pandemic that appears to be worsening despite tough new social distancing measures.

The union territory of Puducherry registered 16 fresh Covid-19 cases taking the overall tally to 36,856.

Odisha reported 594 new cases of Covid-19, taking the total tally of cases in the state to 3,17,239. The total number of Coronavirus cases in the state include 308839 recoveries and 6629 active cases. Fourteen patients succumbed due to the virus in the past 24 hours, according to the health department of Odisha.

Russia plans to vaccinate more than 400,000 military personnel against Covid-19, Defence minister Sergei Shoigu said, as authorities reported a record 27,543 new coronavirus cases. Russia, which is working on several vaccines against the virus, has seen a surge in infections since September but authorities have resisted imposing lockdowns, relying instead on targeted measures in certain regions.

Malaysia has agreed to buy 12.8 million doses of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine, becoming the first country in Southeast Asia to announce a deal with the US drugmaker after some expressed reservations over the need for ultra-cold storage.

Russia has reported a sharp daily spike in coronavirus cases. Officials reported 27,543 new confirmed infections, over 2,000 more than the day before.

Moscow and St, Petersburg reported record numbers of new cases, with 7,918 and 3,687, respectively. The surge brought Russia's total in the pandemic to over 2.2 million, the fifth-highest number in the world. Russia’s coronavirus task force has also reported 38,558 virus-related deaths.

Germany hit another grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic ticking above 1 million confirmed cases of Covid-19. The Robert Koch Institute, the country's disease control centre, said Germany's 16 states reported 22,806 cases overnight for a total since the start of the outbreak of 1,006,394.

The Covid-19 death toll in Uttar Pradesh rose to 7,697 with 23 more fatalities, while 2,366 fresh cases pushed the infection tally to 5,37,747. The state has 25,639 active cases while 5,04,411 people have been treated and discharged.

Telangana reported 715 Covid-19 cases and four deaths, taking the total number of cases in the state to 2,67,665. According to the state's health Department, the total count of coronavirus cases in the state has increased to 2,67,665 including 2,55,378 discharged cases and 1,448 deaths.

The active cases in the state stand at 10,839.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock asked the UK medical regulator to potentially bypass its European Union counterpart and approve the supply of AstraZeneca Plc’s coronavirus vaccine to speed its deployment, reports Bloomberg.