New Delhi | Jagran News Desk: India's active COVID-19 caseload increased to 36,267 on Friday after the country reported 7,584 new infections in the last 24 hours, said the Union Health Ministry. This is the second straight day when the country has reported over 7,200 fresh COVID-19 infections.
The ministry also said that 24 fatalities were reported in the past 24 hours, pushing the country's death toll to 5,24,747 with a case mortality rate of 1.21 per cent, the lowest in the world.
It added that 3,791 4,26,44,092 COVID-19 patients have recovered till now in India, taking the country's recovery rate to 98.70 per cent.
Maharashtra has continued to see a surge in case, according to ministry data. The state recorded 2,813 new cases, highest in nearly four months, and one pandemic-related death in the last 24 hours. Mumbai alone reported 1,702 infections and the lone death during the day.
According to the Maharashtra Health Department, the state's caseload has jumped to 79,01,628, and death toll to 1,47,867.
Besides, Delhi also witnessed a spike in cases and reported 622 new infections in the day with a positivity rate of 3.17 per cent, according to the state health department. With this, Delhi's COVID-19 tally increased to 19,10,613 while the death toll rose to 26,216.
Centre closely monitoring COVID situation
Amid a surge in daily COVID-19 cases, the Centre has said that it is closely monitoring the situation in the states like Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi and Karnataka, asking them to follow the five-fold strategy and amp-up testing.
It has also asked them to monitor clusters of new cases and follow COVID appropriate behaviour.
"There are few states which are reporting a higher contribution to India's cases indicating the possibility of a localised spread of infection. There is, therefore, a need to follow a risk assessment based approach on the public health responses without losing the gains made so far in the fight against the pandemic," Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote to Kerala, Karanataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Tamil Nadu.