New Delhi: India witnessed its highest spike of Covid cases adding over 17,000 patients in just 24 hours taking the tally barely 9,500 short of the grim 500,000 mark. Over 65 percent of these were from Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu, the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry data revealed on Friday.

A total of 17,296 new cases took the tally up to 4,90,401 as India continued to be the fourth worst hit among 213 countries. It is now less than 2 lakh cases away from Russia, which is in the third spot behind the US and Brazil, respectively.

According to the Health Ministry data, 407 new deaths were reported in the last 24 hours taking the toll to 15,301 in the country.

Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu continues at the top of the national chart. There are currently 1,89,463 active cases and 2,85,636 recoveries. The recovery rate continues to be robust at 58.24 per cent.

Maharashtra so far has reported 1,47,741 cases, including 6,931 deaths. It recorded a spike of 4,841 fresh cases with 192 deaths in last 24 hours.

Delhi has 73,780 cases and 2,429 deaths, followed by Tamil Nadu with 70,977 cases with 911 deaths. Delhi witnessed the surge of 3,000 cases with 64 deaths and Tamil Nadu recorded 3,509 cases with 45 fatalities in last 24 hours.

States with more than 10,000 cases include Gujarat with 29,520 cases and 1,753 deaths, Uttar Pradesh (20,193), Rajasthan (16,296), Madhya Pradesh (12,596), West Bengal (15,648), Haryana (12,463), Karnataka, (10,560), Andhra Pradesh (10,884) and Telangana (11,364) cases.

India conducted 2,15,446 COVID-19 tests in the last 24 hours. The number of government labs has been increased to 726 and private labs have increased to 266, a total of 992.