India reports new record of 3,46,786 COVID-19 positive cases, 2,624 deaths in last 24 hours

New Delhi, Apr 24: Union health ministry on Saturday said that India recorded over 3 lakh fresh infections, continuing the trend of registering the world's highest daily tally, with 3,46,786 people testing positive out of 17,53,569 people tested in the last 24 hours. India's total COVID-19 tally reached 1,66,10481 on Saturday.

According to the health ministry, the single-day toll also made a new record as 2,624 people died, taking India's total death tally to almost 1.9 lakh (1,89,544).

Around 2.19 lakh people have recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours, taking the recovery rate of the country to 83.92 per cent, the Union health ministry's bulletin showed.

The number of active cases in the country is over 25 lakh, which is around 15 per cent of the total cases.

The number of COVID-19 cases in India started rising since February. While the rise at that time was limited to only a few states, including Maharashtra, in March and April, the second wave of the pandemic reached most of the states while India's vaccination drive was on.

In the past few days, the COVID-19 situation has become precarious, as the staggering rise in the number of daily infections has been coupled with an acute shortage of hospital beds, oxygen, drugs etc.