New Delhi: As India continued to be the fourth worst-hit among 213 countries infected by COVID-19 with 2,10,120 active cases and 16,475 deaths, the Union Health Ministry on Monday said the recovery of infected patients shows "encouraging results".

"The recovery rate continues to steadily improve. It has reached 58.67 amongst COVID-19 patients today," said Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHF).

It further said that the difference between recovered and active cases has increased to 1,11,602.

So far, as many as 3,21,722 patients have been cured of COVID-19, the Ministry said, adding there are 2,10,120 active cases in the country and all are under active medical supervision.

During the last 24 hours, the Ministry said, a total of 12,010 COVID-19 patients have been cured.

The Ministry said the improvement is the result of the Centre's graded, pre-emptive and proactive steps taken along with the states and Union Territories (UTs) for prevention, containment and management of the deadly virus .

The data was shared when India noted a record spike of 19,459 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours on Monday pushing the total infected tally to 5,48,318.

According to the Health Ministry data, 380 deaths were recorded in a day taking the COVID-19 death toll to 16,475.

With a spike of 5,493 cases, Maharashtra remained the worst hit state in the country. The state has a total of 1,64,626 cases, including 7,429 deaths.

The national capital is the second worst hit state with a total of 83,077 COVID-19 cases, including 2,623 deaths and 52,607 recoveries. Delhi is followed by Tamil Nadu with 82,275 confirmed cases, of which, 1,079 have died, 45,537 have recovered and 35,659 are active cases.

States with more than 10,000 cases include Gujarat with 31,320 cases and 1,808 deaths, Uttar Pradesh (22,147), Rajasthan (17,271), Madhya Pradesh (13,186), West Bengal (17,283), Haryana (13,829), Karnataka, (13,190), Andhra Pradesh (13,241) and Telangana (14,419) cases.

The Ministry also added that a total of 1,047 diagnostic labs have been functioning dedicatedly to test COVID-19. Of these labs, 760 are run by the government and 287 by private sectors.

In the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry has inducted 11 new COVID-19 labs operated by the government sector.

Of the total, 567 are Real-Time RT PCR based labs which include 362 government and 205 private labs. A total of 393 are TrueNat based testing labs-- 366 government and 27 private. However, CBNAAT based testing labs are 87 in the country that include 32 government labs and 55 private.

The total number of samples tested is showing an uphill trend, and has touched 83,98,362, it said. "Yesterday, 1,70,560 samples were tested."