India's COVID-19 tally crossed the 24-lakh (2,4 million) mark on Friday with 64,553 new cases in 24 hours, while the toll climbed to 48,040 with 1,007 more fatalities, said the Health Ministry. Out of the total 2,461,190 cases, recoveries have surged to 1,751,555 with a record 55,573 more people recuperating in the past 24 hours, taking the recovery rate to nearly 71.17 per cent.

The actual caseload of the country is the active cases, which currently stands at 6,61,595.

Notably, the case fatality rate, which is the proportion of people who die from the disease among individuals diagnosed, has dropped to 1.96 per cent, the ministry said.

The country had touched the 20-lakh mark on August 7 and added more than four lakh cases in seven days. The silver lining, however, is that the gap between recoveries and active cases is growing every day. Currently, recoveries are over 10 lakh more than the active cases.

As many as 8,48,728 samples were tested on Thursday, taking the total to 2,76,94,416 samples being tested till date, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Maharashtra remained the worst-hit state with a total of 5,60,126 cases and 19,063 deaths; followed by Tamil Nadu with 3,20,355 cases and 5,397 deaths. Then comes Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh.

On Thursday, the union government stated that it has distributed more than 3.04 crore N95 masks, more than 1.28 crore PPE kits to states, union territories and central institutions free of cost in the last five months. Over 22,000 'Make in India' ventilators have also been delivered.

The Centre has been strengthening the health infrastructure to fight the pandemic and effectively manage it. Along with augmenting COVID-19 facilities, the government has been providing medical supplies free of cost to the state and union territories to supplement their efforts.

India continues to be the third worst-hit after Brazil with 3,164,785 infections and 104,201 deaths, and the US with 5,248,172 cases and 167,092 fatalities. (IANS)