India's COVID-19 fatality rate has fallen below 2.5 percent for the first time, marking a significant dip and bringing the country in the queue of nations with the lowest fatality rates globally.

Interestingly, 29 states and Union Territories (UTs) have Case Fatality Rate (CFR) lower than the national average, says the latest report collated by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).

The CFR is progressively falling and currently it is 2.49 per cent, the MoHFW data said.

Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Mizoram along with Andaman and Nicobar Islands have zero per cent fatality rate while 14 states and UTs have a CFR of less than 1 per cent.

The 14 states and UTs with less than one per cent fatality rate includes Ladakh (0.09), Tripura (0.19), Assam (0.23), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu (0.33), Kerala (0.34), Chhattisgarh (0.46), Arunachal Pradesh (0.46), Meghalaya (0.48), Odisha (0.51), Goa (0.60), Himachal Pradesh (0.75), Bihar (0.83), Jharkhand (0.86) and Telangana (0.93).

Uttarakhand (1.22), Andhra Pradesh (1.31), Haryana (1.35), Tamil Nadu (1.45), Puducherry (1.48), Chandigarh (1.71), Jammu & Kashmir (1.79) and Rajasthan (1.94) have fatality rates lower than two per cent while Karnataka (2.08) and Uttar Pradesh (2.36) are in the bracket of 2 to 3 per cent fatality rate.

"This shows commendable work done by the public health apparatus of the country," said the ministry, adding it happened because of focused efforts of the Centre and state and UT governments on efficient clinical management of hospitalised cases.

"With effective containment strategy, aggressive testing and standardised clinical management protocols based on holistic standard of care approach, the CFR has significantly dipped."

The data comes when India's total coronavirus cases on Sunday reached 10,77,618 with a record 38,902 new cases reported in the past 24 hours. With 543 new deaths, the death toll stood at 26,816.

Karnataka is the new hotspot state nearing 60,000 cases, as Maharashtra remained the worst-hit state, with 3,00,937 cases and 11,596 casualties. It crossed the 3-lakh mark on Saturday with Mumbai reporting over 1 lakh coronavirus cases so far. It is followed by Tamil Nadu with a total 1,65,714 cases, including 2,403 deaths.

The national capital, on the other hand is projecting an uplifting trend. For 17 of the last 20 days, including 11 in a row now, the number of people recovering from Covid in Delhi has remained higher than newly-detected infections -- no other state has come close to such a trend.

Globally, over 14 million people have been infected with the virus and 602,656 have died. It has taken just four days to climb to 14 million cases from 13 million recorded on July 13. The WHO warned that fresh daily tallies are breaching all records.(IANS)