India reports 18,840 new Covid-19 cases; active cases increase by 2,693

New Delhi: India on Saturday logged 18,840 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours - marginally higher than the 18,815 reported Friday - taking the country's cumulative caseload cases past 43.6 crore, health ministry said.

The top five states which have registered maximum cases are Kerala with 3,310 cases, followed by West Bengal with 2,950 cases, Maharashtra with 2,944 cases, Tamil Nadu with 2,722 cases and Karnataka with 1,037 cases.

Nearly 68.81% of the new cases are reported from these five states, with Kerala alone responsible for 17.57% of the new cases.

There were also 43 Covid-related deaths in the past 24 hours - 38 yesterday - and over 5.25 lakh have died of the virus so far.

A total of 16,104 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, which brought the total recoveries to 4,29,53,980 across the country. India's recovery rate now stands at 98.51%.

The daily positivity rate stands at 4.14 per cent and the weekly positivity rate was 4.09 per cent, the data showed. The health ministry bulletin further stated that more than 1.98 billion doses of vaccines - first, second and boosters - have been administered across the country so far.

In Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, daily Covid cases have now breached the 1,000-mark. Bengal and Delhi have also shown a Covid surge over the past week.

India's Covid tally surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19, 2020. In May last year, it crossed the grim milestone of two crore and in June over three crore. Covid infections in India crossed four crore on January 25 this year.