India's COVID-19 cases cross 5m

With a massive spike of 90,123 cases, including 1,290 deaths in 24 hours, India's tally on Wednesday crossed the grim mark of 50 lakh, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The total corona tally stands at 50,20,359 cases.

On 17 July, India had logged 1 million cases, which then doubled to 2 million in 20 days on 7 August. The country added another 1 million on 23 August and went past 4 million on 5 September. In 11 days, it added another 1 million cases, mounting to 5 million cases on Wednesday.

Out of the total cases, 9,95,933 are active, 39,42,360 have been discharged, while 82,066 lost the battle against the viral disease. In the last 24 hours, 82,961 patients were discharged.

While the recovery rate stands at a whooping high of 78.53 per cent, the fatality rate has come down to 1.63 per cent, the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

Maharashtra continues to be the worst-hit with a total of 10,97,856 cases, including 30,409 deaths; followed by Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.

On Monday, the ministry asked Delhi, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu to ramp up their testing. These are the states whose positivity rates are faring above the national average. Meanwhile, four of these states account for more than half (53.5 per cent) of the active cases.

According to the data from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India conducted 11,16,842 sample tests in a single day on Tuesday, taking the total number of samples tested so far to 5,94,29,115.