With the biggest-ever jump of 9,887 new cases and 294 deaths in the past 24 hours, the COVID-19 tally in India reached 2,36,657 on Saturday, a Health Ministry data revealed. The country has now overtaken Italy, which has recorded 2,34,531 cases.
The surge comes amid the first phase of unlock after a two-month shutdown even as the government plans to open religious places from next week.
Of the total cases, 1,15942 are active, and 1,14,072 have recovered, while 6,642 lost the battle against the pandemic so far.
The worst hit state continues to be Maharashtra with a total of 80,229 cases, followed by Tamil Nadu with 28,694, Delhi with 26,334 cases and Gujarat with 19,094.
The national capital after Maharashtra (42,224) reported the most number of active cases at 15,311. In Tamil Nadu there are 12,700 active cases while in Gujarat the number is 4,901.
Globally, the total number of global coronavirus has increased to over 6.7 million, while the death toll has topped 3,94,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.
As of Saturday morning, the overall number of cases stood at 67,31,824, while the death toll increased to 3,94,787, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.
With 18,97,239 confirmed cases and 1,09,127 deaths, the US currently accounts for the highest number of infections and fatalities in the world, according to the CSSE.
In terms of cases, Brazil comes in the second place with 6,14,941 infections.
This was followed by Russia (4,49,256), the UK (2,84,734), Spain (2,40,978), India (2,36,184), Italy (2,34,531), France (1,90,180), Peru (1,87,400), Germany (1,84,924), Turkey (1,68,340), Iran (1,67,156), Chile (1,22,499) and Mexico (1,10,026), the CSSE figures showed.
Regarding fatalities, the UK continues in the second position after the US with 40,344 COVID-19 deaths, which also accounts for the highest fatalities in Europe.
The other countries with over 10,000 deaths are Brazil (34,021), Italy (33,774), France (29,114), Spain (27,134) and Mexico (13,170).
( With inputs from IANS )