India's daily count of cases of the coronavirus disease slumped to 259-day low on Tuesday, with 10,423 people testing positive for the viral illness, taking the cumulative case count to 34,296,237, the Union ministry of health and family welfare's (MoHFW) daily bulletin showed. The latest fresh infections are nearly 17 per cent lower than those on Monday, when 12,514 people returned positive test result.
368 of the 443 deaths in the country were reported from Kerala, where 32,049 people have died so far. The southern state also contributed 5,297 fresh cases, pushing the caseload to 49,73,954.
India's active cases comprise 0.45 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.21 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.
The weekly positivity rate of 1.16% per cent is less than two per cent for the last 39 days. At 1.03 per cent, the daily positivity rate continues to remain below two per cent for the last 29 days.
On the vaccination front, 5,239,444 more doses of Covid-19 vaccines were administered. With this, a total of more than 1.06 billion doses have been administered since the nationwide inoculation drive began on January 16 this year.
106.85 cr vaccine doses have been administered so far under Nationwide vaccination drive. About three-quarters of adults in the country of 1.3 billion people have had one shot and 30 percent are fully vaccinated, according to government figures.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a virtual meeting this week with officials of districts where the COVID-19 vaccination coverage is low. The meeting will include districts with less than 50 per cent coverage of the first dose and low coverage of the second dose of Covid vaccine, the notification said.
Australia on Monday recognised India's Covaxin for the purpose of travel to the country as it eased curbs on international travel.