NEW DELHI: No coronavirus case has been reported in 10 states and Union territories in the last 24 hours and the recovery rate has increased to over 30 per cent, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Sunday, even as the COVID-19 death toll rose to 2,109 and the number of cases to 62,939.
Vardhan asserted that India was moving fast on the path of success in the fight against the pandemic.
According to the health ministry data, 1,511 COVID-19 patients were cured of the respiratory infection in the last 24 hours -- the highest number of recoveries in a day.
The country registered 128 fatalities and 3,277 cases in the last 24 hours, according to the ministry.
The total number of cases include 111 foreign nationals.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 41,472, while 19,357 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, it said.
India carried out 86,000 coronavirus tests on Saturday and the country's daily testing capacity now stands at 95,000, Vardhan told reporters after inspecting a COVID-19 care centre in the Mandoli area of Delhi.
He also said that central teams are being sent to Delhi and nine states to assist the governments in managing the outbreak of the disease.
Apart from Delhi, central teams are being to Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and West Bengal.
"It is also heartening to note that in 10 states and Union Territories, no new case has emerged in the last 24 hours. These are the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Manipur, Odisha, Mizoram and Puducherry," the minister said.
He also said that four states and UTs -- Daman and Diu, Sikkim, Nagaland and Lakshadweep have not reported a single case of the virus till date.
Later in a series of tweets, Vardhan said the National Institute of Virology in Pune has successfully developed the first indigenous antibody detection kit for COVID-19 that will play a critical role in surveillance for the infection.
The kits can test 90 samples together in a single run of 2.5 hours, so that healthcare professionals can proceed quickly with necessary next steps, the health minister Vardhan said.
After development at the ICMR-NIV, Pune, the technology has been transferred for mass-scale production to Zydus Cadila, which is an innovation-driven global healthcare company.
The drug controller general has granted Zydus the permission for commercial production and marketing of the kits, Vardhan said.
Earlier in the day, he said the government is making all efforts to ensure that no stone is left unturned in the fight against COVID-19 and the states are given all help they need.
About the status of containment of the virus, Vardhan said, "Before lockdown, the doubling rate was 3.2 days when measured over a period of 3 days, three when measured over a period of seven days and 4.1 over a period of 14 days. Today it stands at 12 over a three-day window, 10.1 over a seven-day window and 11 over a 14-day window."
Similarly, the fatality rate stands at 3.3 per cent while the recovery rate has improved to 30.7 per cent, he said, asserting that the situation has improved due to the lockdown.
This also reflects on the quality of healthcare being provided to the COVID-19 patients, Vardhan added.
India has a total 36 states and Union territories.
A total 128 deaths were reported in the country since Saturday morning -- 48 in Maharashtra, 23 in Gujarat, 15 in Madhya Pradesh, 11 in West Bengal, eight in Uttar Pradesh, five each in Rajasthan and Delhi, four in Tamil Nadu, three in Andhra Pradesh, two in Punjab and one each in Telangana, Haryana, Chandigarh and Assam.
Of the 2,109 fatalities, Maharashtra tops the tally with 779 deaths.
Gujarat comes second with 472 deaths, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 215, West Bengal at 171, Rajasthan at 106, Uttar Pradesh at 74, Delhi at 73, and Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu at 44.
The death toll is 31 in Punjab, 30 each in Karnataka and Telangana.
Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana each have registered nine COVID-19 deaths, Bihar five and Kerala four.
Jharkhand has recorded three COVID-19 fatalities.
Odisha, Chandigarh, Assam and Himachal Pradesh have reported two deaths each.
Meghalaya and Uttarakhand have reported one fatality each.
According to a PTI tally based on data from inputs from states, the cases jumped to 64,244 while 19,342 patients had recovered and the death toll rose to 2043.
A total of 7,740 dedicated COVID-19 facilities in 483 districts have been identified, the Union health ministry said, asserting that adequate health infrastructure is in place to fight the pandemic.
The public health facilities dedicated to COVID-19 management are categorised into three categories -- Dedicated COVID Hospital (DCH), Dedicated COVID Health Centre (DCHC) and Dedicated COVID Care Centre (DCCC).