NEW DELHI, Aug 27, 2020 (BSS) – India today witnessed it’s highest-ever spike of the Covid-19 cases as the country registered 75,760 new cases during the last 24 hours pushing the nationwide tally to over 3.31 million.
The nationwide tally pushed India to become the world’s second highest country after the United States of America in terms of coronavirus infection.
According to India’s Union Health Ministry, the total death toll due to Covid-19 pandemic reached 60,472 with the 1,023 fatalities in the last 24 hours in the country.
However, the number of active cases in India are registered 7,25,991, while 25,23,771 patients have been recovered.
The total number of Covid-19 recoveries in India exceeds the active cases of the infection by 3.5 times and the recovery rate is over 76 per cent, the ministry said on Wednesday.
Besides, against the backdrop of continued increase of new cases of coronavirus infection in the over populated South Asian nation India has further scaled up its testing capacity to effectively fight coronavirus pandemic.
“The testing for the disease has been increased from 363 tests per million per day on August 1 to more than 600 tests per million per day at present, with India having tested nearly 3.7 crore cumulative Covid-19 samples so far,” Rajesh Bhushan, Union health secretary, said on Wednesday.
The centre in collaboration with the state governments and UTs have consistently ramping up its testing infrastructure under the centre-led policy of ‘Test-Track-Treat”, he said.
India’s expanded diagnostic lab network and facilitation for easy testing across the country have given a substantial boost of Covid-19 testing, which leads to early diagnosis, provides opportunities to isolate or hospitalise the positive cases adequately in advance and helps lower mortality rates.
Meanwhile, Delhi state government following a spike in the number of new cases of the coronavirus disease, has announced doubling the Covid-19 testing from its existing 20,000 per day aimed at effectively fight the pandemic.