India records 48,900 new COVID-19 cases, death toll touches 31358

Meanwhile, the number of COVID-19 cases in the country now stands at 1,336,861.

There are 456071 active cases in the country at present.

So far, 849431 people have recovered from the disease.

COVAXIN human trial begins:

The clinical trial of the country's first indigenously-developed vaccine against Novel Coronavirus - COVAXIN began at AIIMS here on Friday, with the first dose of the injection given to a man, nearing his 30s.

According to Dr Sanjay Rai, Professor at the Centre for Community Medicine at AIIMS and principal investigator of the study, ''We had called two people for the human trial, but only one of them turned up.''

Prof Rai said after administering the medicine, the person was put under observation for two hours. No side effect of the vaccine was noted, he added.

His health will be monitored for the coming two weeks, said the Medico, adding that other volunteers will be administered the vaccine on Saturday.

All the volunteers chosen for the two-phase study are healthy people, with no underlying conditions, such as Diabetes or Blood Pressure, Prof Rai said, adding that the study will check the number of antibodies produced after administering of the vaccine.

Total 1,125 people will be administered the vaccine, being formulated jointly by Bharat Biotech, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology, Pune.