As per latest figures issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Saturday, the overall Covid-19 cases tally was reported at 16,95,988 cases of which 10,94,374 have recovered while 36,511 people have succumbed to the illness. Currently, there are 5,65,103 active COVID-19 cases in the country.
Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu continued to be the worst affected states by the Covid-19 pandemic, also witnessing the maximum rise in cases in the last 24 hours.
India had crossed the grim milestone of 16 lakh cases on Friday, taking just three days to add over a lakh cases after crossing the 15 lakh mark. Amid the ever rising tally of the pandemic affected people in the nation, the only silver lining is a healthy recovery rate of around 64.5 percent.
More than 10.94 lakh patients of the 17-lakh infected have recovered. India has tested a total of 1,93,58,659 samples so far. The positive rate - percentage of patients who have tested positive for coronavirus - stood at 8.57 per cent.
India's coronavirus case fatality rate is progressively declining and now stands at 2.18 per cent, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Friday.
India is the third worst affected nation by the Covid-19 pandemic, behind the United States and Brazil which stand atop the unwanted table with over 45 and lakh cases respectively.
Meanwhile, coronavirus vaccine trials have been going on full throttle across 12 medical facilities. COVAXIN, India's indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine is in the clinical trial phase.