India has 3,31,146 active COVID-19 cases, which is around a third of the country's total tally that rose to 9.68 lakh on Thursday, the Union health ministry said and credited targeted measures for the steady decline in active caseload.
As the country witnessed a record single-day increase of 32,695 cases on Thursday, the ministry said the recovery rate rose to 50 per cent mid-June and thereafter there has been a steady rise in recoveries and a decline in the number of active cases.
"Of the total COVID-19 cases, 63.25 per cent have recovered so far. Simultaneously, there has been a steady dip in the number of active cases, from around 45 per cent in mid-June to around 34.18 per cent as of now," the ministry.
A total of 20,783 people have recuperated in the past 24 hours, the highest number of recoveries in a day, taking the total number of recovered cases to 6,12,814.
According to the health ministry's data updated at 8 am, the number of recoveries exceeds active cases by 2,81,668.
The ministry said the actual caseload of COVID-19 has remained limited and manageable due to proactive containment measures such as house-to-house survey, perimeter control activities, timely contact tracing, aggressive testing and timely diagnosis, and effective clinical management of moderate and severe cases through a well-implemented standard of care protocol increasing their chances of recovery.
Hospital infrastructure includes 1,381 Dedicated COVID Hospitals, 3,100 Dedicated COVID Healthcare Centres and 10,367 COVID Care Centres with a total of 46,666 ICU beds.
"Collaborative strategy among the Centre and states has also ensured that the growth of COVID-19 cases in restricted to certain pockets of the country," the ministry said in a statement.
Just two states -- Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu -- constitute 48.15 per cent of country's total active caseload. Ten states constitute 84.62 per cent of the total active caseload, it said, adding the Centre continues to handhold these states in matters of containment and effective clinical management.
Joint efforts by the Centre, states and Union Territories to increase testing capacity, ramping up health infrastructure, prioritising surveillance in SARI/ILI cases, and ensuring mapping of the aged population and those with comorbidities have led to continuous improvement in recovery rates across India, the ministry added.
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 9,68,876 on Thursday, while the death toll climbed to 24,915 with 606 people succumbing to the disease, according to the Union health ministry data.
