India on Friday registered 332,730 new COVID-19 cases within the past 24 hours, marking the largest daily increase since the start of the outbreak, the Health Ministry said on Friday. The total number of infections in the country has reached 16,263,695, according to the ministry.

Within the same period of time, the death toll has risen by 2,263 to 186,920 people.

Some of the worst hit states/Union Territories that have displayed an upward trend in the daily new COVID-19 cases include Maharashtra that recorded 67,013 cases, Delhi 26,169 cases, Karnataka 25,795 cases, Kerala 26,995, Chhattisgarh 14,519, Gujarat 13,105, Bihar 11,489 and West Bengal 11,948 cases in the past day.

India comes second in terms of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, following the United States with more than 31.92 million patients.

Meanwhile, 13 COVID-19 patients lost their lives in a fire that broke at Vijay Vallabh hospital in the Intensive Care Unit of Virar in Palghar district of Maharashtra, in the wee hours of Friday.

The incident occurred at around 3:15 am, as the blaze started due to a short-circuit in the air conditioner in the intensive care unit (ICU), hospital sources said.