India on Friday recorded 259,551 new coronavirus cases, pushing the total tally to 26,031,991, the Union health ministry data showed.
The infection number remained below the 300,000-mark for the fifth consecutive day.
The casualty count reached 4,209, taking the nationwide death toll to 291331.
The number of active Covid cases saw another drop of 1,01,953 and came down to 30,27,925. On Thursday, the country reported 2,76,110 fresh cases of Covid-19 and 3,874 deaths.
The Health Ministry said that a total of 19,18,79,503 people have been vaccinated so far in the country, including 14,82,754 who were administered vaccines in the last 24 hours.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 32,44,17,870 samples have been tested up to May 20 for Covid-19. Of these 20,61,683 samples were tested on Thursday.
Maharashtra has been reporting the highest infection cases followed by Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
A continuous drop in Covid-19 active cases has been noted in the last 15 days, said health ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal on Thursday, adding that the country’s positivity rate in the last 10 days has been recorded as less than 20 per cent.
"From being 17.13 per cent reported on May 3, the active cases now comprise 12.1 per cent of the country's total infections. A positive trend in recovery has also been noted. The recovery rate which was 81.7 per cent on May 3 has increased to 86.7 now," he said.
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Several states have reported growing cases of rare deadly Black Fungus infection among recovered Covid patients. Many have directed emergency measures to tackle the surge. States like Rajasthan, Telangana, Odisha and Gujarat have declared Mucormycosis as epidemics while the Delhi government said dedicated treatment centres for Black Fungus will be created in three hospitals.
Mr Agarwal during a press meeting on Thursday further stated, "Eight states have more than 1 lakh active cases, nine states have 50,000 to 1 lakh active cases and 19 states have less than 50,000 active cases. A decline has been observed in six states which were major contributors to active cases in the country - Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat.”
"Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Jharkhand are 10 states where a decline in cases and decline in positivity in the last 3 weeks have been observed," he added.
Since the last three weeks, Tamil Nadu, Meghalaya Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Mizoram are showing a rise in cases and a rise in positivity rate as well, the health ministry official said.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a virtual meeting with district magistrates, local officials and chief ministers of some states on Thursday to review the covid situation there. He stressed saving the rural areas and villages from the spread of the infection and sought ideas and practices to tackle the pandemic. The Prime Minister said the Sars-Cov-2 virus is "like a shape-shifter and clever" and advised not to lower the guard.