India's Health Ministry on Thursday said the country's doubling time of COVID-19 cases has sharply increased to 70.4 days from 25.5 days in mid-August, which is nearly thrice the time being taken earlier.

"This indicates a substantial fall in the daily new cases and the consequent increase in time taken to double the total cases," the Ministry tweeted as India recorded a spike of 67,708 coronavirus cases and 680 deaths in 24 hours, as the tally mounted to 73,07,097 cases.

A graph along with the Ministry's tweet showed India's doubling rate was 27.7 days on August 18; 32 on August 30; 35.6 on September 17; 51.4 on October 2; and 70.4 on October 14.

Out of the total cases, 8,12,390 are currently active, 63,83,441 have been discharged, while 1,11,266 lost the battle against the pandemic.

While the recovery rate stands at 87.36 per cent, the fatality rate is 1.52 per cent, the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

Maharashtra continued to be the worst-hit with a total of 15,54,389 cases, including 40,859 deaths; followed by Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. There has been a resurgence of sort in Kerala as cases have started increasing and it now shares half the caseload of the country along with Maharashtra and Karnataka.

According to the data from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India conducted 11,36,183 sample tests in a single day on Wednesday, taking the total number of samples tested so far to 9,12,26,305.

It was after nearly two months that the daily spike had dropped below 60,000 on Tuesday. Active cases have remained below nine lakh for almost a week, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data showed.

The fatalities have come down below 1,000 for nearly a fortnight now. India had recorded a spike of 97,894 cases on September 17.

(IANS)