Even as India's total novel coronavirus cases has crossed 13 lakh (1.3 million), the fatality rate has registered a sharp decline to 2.35 percent, one of the lowest in the world, says the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data.

Sharing the data on Saturday, the ministry said it could be possible because of "effective and standardised clinical management protocols based on holistic standard of care approach" adopted in the country.

The case fatality rate continues on the downward trend, which means that the collective efforts of the central government, as well as state or Union territory (UT) authorities, have helped keep a check on the mortality due to coronavirus, the Ministry said.

As per the figures, 32,223 COVID-19 patients recovered in the last 24 hours even as 48,916 fresh cases and 787 deaths were reported.

The cumulative tally of cured patients reached 8,49,431 on Saturday, indicating a record recovery rate fo 63.54 percent. With this figure, the gap between recovered patients and active cases further increased to 3,93,360.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry report said a record 420,898 corona tests were conducted in a single day in the last 24 hours in the country. This comes on the heels of 3,50,000 tests done every day consistently over the last one week, the ministry said.

"With these 4,20,898 tests, the Tests Per Million figure has gone up to 11,485 and cumulative testing to 1,58,49,068. Both continue to maintain an upward trend."

A strong factor contributing to this achievement is the persistent increase in the number of labs -- from merely one in January 2020 to 1,301 on Saturday, including 902 government and 399 private labs.

Revised facilitative guidelines on testing issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research and the all-round efforts made by the governments also aided in the widespread testing, it said.

The central government has advised all state/UT authorities to keep following the strategy of 'Test, Track and Treat' aggressively, which may lead to higher numbers of daily corona positive cases initially but would eventually achieve a decline -- as demonstrated after the Union government's targeted efforts in Delhi.

Amid all this, the highest spike in coronavirus cases were reported from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Andhra Pradesh.

Maharashtra has so far recorded 3,57,117 corona cases, of which 13,132 patients lost their lives to the disease, followed by Tamil Nadu with 1,99,749 cases and 3,320 deaths.

Delhi has registered 1,28,389 cases and 3,777 casualties. Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Sikkim, Manipur and Mizoram administrations have effectively implemented health safety protocol in the last four months. These places have reported zero deaths so far and the recovery rate is more than 60 percent.

Ladakh has reported two deaths due to Covid-19 so far, and has 209 active cases. A total of 1,035 patients have recovered. Nagaland has 701 active cases at present, one death and 537 recovered patients.
 (IANS)