The Indian Ministry of Health has reported that 412,262 new cases of coronavirus infection and 3,980 deaths due to COVID-19 have been recorded in the country in the last 24 hours. The Reuters agency said the second wave of the pandemic is "flooding the healthcare system" and spreading from cities to large countryside.

Almost half

The World Health Organization (WHO) said in its weekly report that India accounts for nearly half of the coronavirus cases reported worldwide last week and a quarter of deaths.

The COVID-19 crisis is most severe in the capital city of Delhi. However, as Reuters pointed out, in rural areas where nearly 70 percent of the country's population lives, limited access to public health care poses an even greater challenge.

"The situation in the countryside has become dangerous," said Suresh Kumar, field coordinator at Manav Sansadhan Evam Mahila Vikas Sansthan (MSEMVS), a human rights charity. 'In some villages in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which has around 200 million inhabitants, in the north of the country where this organization operates, people die in almost every other home,' added the coordinator. "People are scared, huddled in their homes, with fever and coughs. They have all the symptoms of COVID-19, but with no information available, many think it is seasonal flu," reported Kumar.

The chief scientific adviser of the Indian government, K. Vijay Raghavan, warned of a third wave of infections. "Phase three is inevitable given the high levels of the virus circulating," he said at a news conference Wednesday. "But it is not clear when it will come (...). We should prepare for new waves" - he added.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been widely criticized for not acting sooner to quell the second wave of the epidemic. In recent weeks, religious festivals and political rallies have attracted tens of thousands of people, becoming hotspots for the large-scale spread of the coronavirus.

The rise in infections has also coincided with a drastic decline in vaccination rates due to supply and sourcing problems, despite India being the world's leading producer of vaccines. "After the decline in daily COVID-19 tests, 1.9 million samples were tested on Wednesday," the Indian State Medical Research Council said on Twitter.

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