Voluntary blood donation best way to serve mankind: Harsh Vardhan

To mark the event, family members of Covid warrior Late Hiralal, who was a frontline health worker at AIIMS, and family members of Kargil Shaheed Lance Naik Rajbir Singh were honoured for their sacrifice.

"On the eve of the Independence Day, the camp is a tribute to both fallen white coat warriors and the Kargil martyrs. We must remember the ultimate sacrifice made by the COVID warriors including doctors, nurses or paramedical staff while saving people's lives in the pandemic," said Vardhan.

The Union Health Minister encouraged the doctors and healthcare workers to come up in large numbers on the eve of Independence Day to donate blood and save the lives of patients.

"In view of Covid-19 pandemic, the number of voluntary donations and blood donation camps saw a significant decline. Blood is required for emergency surgeries, blood disorders like thalassemia, blood cancers and road traffic accidents and trauma cases. Hence the best way to serve humankind is voluntary blood donation," he added.

Vardhan also shed light on the number of coronavirus cases in the country and showed confidence in the scientific developments in the field of treatment and vaccines, asserting that India will soon achieve in the fight against the viral disease.

"India's continuously rising recovery rate and progressively falling case fatality rate have proven the success of the Covid-19 containment strategy. We have successfully ramped up our testing capacity which has crossed more than 8.4 lakh milestone today with more than 1,450 testing labs spread across the country."

On Friday, India's novel coronavirus tally crossed the 24-lakh mark with 64,553 new cases in 24 hours, while the death toll climbed to 48,040 with 1,007 more fatalities.

Out of the total 2,461,190 cases, recoveries have surged to 1,751,555 with a record 55,573 more people recuperating in the past 24 hours, taking the recovery rate to nearly 71.17 per cent. The actual caseload of the country are the active cases, which currently stand at 6,61,595.

Notably, the case fatality rate, which is the proportion of people who die from the disease among individuals diagnosed, has dropped to 1.96 per cent, the Ministry said.