India Registers Record 273,810 New COVID-19 Cases Within Past 24 Hours - Health Ministry

NEW DELHI (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th April, 2021) India has registered 273,810 new COVID-19 cases within the past 24 hours, making it the largest daily increase to date, the health ministry said on Monday.

The country has been experiencing a continuous surge in new cases for the 40th day in a row, with the number of active patients skyrocketing from 135,900 to more than 1.92 million.

The highest daily increase has been detected in the western state of Maharashtra, with 68,600 new cases logged. In late March, a new double mutant variant of the coronavirus was discovered in the state, which is said to be responsible for approximately 20 percent of cases in the area.

Maharashtra is followed by Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, with 30,566 and 25,462 new cases respectively.

The country's death toll has increased by over 1,600 fatalities, reaching a total of more than 178,000.

�India comes second in terms of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, over 15 million, following the United States with more than 31.66 million patients.