India on Thursday recorded a whopping 35,871 new cases of COVID-19 during the past 24 hours, pushing the country's caseload to 1,14,74,605, while the death toll soared to 1,59,216 with 172 more fatalities making it the highest splurge in cases after 100 days. According to the Union Health Ministry, the active cases rose by 17,958 to stand at 2,52,364 which at present is now 2.20% of the total caseload.

Of the freshly reported deaths, Maharashtra accounted for 84, the highest followed by Punjab 35, Kerala 13, Tamil Nadu 8, and Chhattisgarh 6.  The Health Ministry on Thursday said that 400 patients have been found to be affected with UK, South Africa and Brazil mutant variants of the coronavirus, IANS said. 

The past 24 hours saw 17,741 people recovering from the deadly virus, taking the total recovery count to 1,10,63,025, which is 96.41% of the case tally, while the fatality rate stood at 1.39%.

On the vaccination front, a total of 3,64,67,744 (over 36 million) vaccine doses have been administered till 1900 hrs Wednesday.

Amid spurt in cases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing the chief ministers of all the states and representatives of the Union Territories on Wednesday, warned of a second wave of the virus transmission and asked them to take decisive steps to check the spike.