India registered 18,855 new coronavirus cases on Friday, taking the country’s tally to 1,07,20,048. The toll rose to 1,54,010 after 163 new deaths were recorded in 24 hours.

The number of people who have recovered from the disease surged to 1,03,94,352, pushing the national recovery rate to 96.96%, while the case fatality rate stood at 1.44%, according to PTI.

Active cases in the country remained below two lakh for the 10th consecutive day at
1,71,686. This accounted for 1.60% of the total number of cases, the data from the health ministry showed.

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

A total of 19,50,81,079 samples have been tested for the disease across the country as of Friday, according to an update by the Indian Council of Medical Research. Of these, 7,42,306 samples were tested on Thursday.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that over 25 lakh people have so far been inoculated in the vaccination process against the coronavirus. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said that 70% of India’s coronavirus cases were concentrated in Maharashtra and Kerala.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India will help other countries in resolving the coronavirus crisis. He said that more vaccines would come from India to help other countries in their vaccination drive. He was addressing the World Economic Forum.

Globally, the coronavirus has infected more than 10.14 crore people and killed over 21.90 lakh, according to John Hopkins University. Over 5.60 crore people have recovered from the infection in the world.