India reports 3,26,098 new COVID-19 cases, 3,890 deaths in last 24 hours

New Delhi, May 15: Union health ministry on Saturday said that India recorded 326,089 new coronavirus cases and 3,890 more deaths, taking the caseload and the death toll to 24,372,907 and 266,207 respectively.

According to the health ministry, as many as 353,299 people recovered in the last 24 hours and the total recoveries climbed to 20,432,898 and constitute 83.50 per cent of the caseload. The active cases stand at 3,673,802.

Nearly 1.7 million samples were tested for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative testing figures to 313,017,193 , according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

It can be seen that Saturday's case count is 17,055 less than that of Friday's when 343,144 people tested positive for the disease. India is severely hit by the deadlier second wave of the pandemic and is reporting a high increase in cases and deaths on a daily basis.

This increase has led to a near collapse of the country's health infrastructure with states and Union territories (UTs) flagging shortage of oxygen supplies, hospital beds, vaccine doses and essential drugs such as Remdesivir and Tocilizumab.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that the COVID-19 disease situation in India remains hugely concerning as several states continue to see high numbers of cases, deaths and hospitalisations.

Addressing a press conference, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the WHO is responding to the Covid crisis in India and has supplied thousands of oxygen concentrators, masks, tents for mobile field hospitals and other medical equipment.