New Delhi: The daily rise in coronavirus infections remained below 20,000 for the second consecutive day with 18,870 fresh cases recorded in a single day, while the active cases declined to 2,82,520, the lowest in 194 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday.
With the fresh cases, India's tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 3,37,16,451.
The death toll climbed to 4,47,751 with 378 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.
The active cases comprise 0.84 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.83 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.
A decrease of 9,686 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.
India crossed the grim milestone of two crores on May 4 and three crores on June 23.
Meanwhile, the global coronavirus caseload has topped 232.7 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 4.76 million and vaccinations soared to over 6.14 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University.
In its latest update on Wednesday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 232,723,959 and 4,764,232 respectively, while the total vaccine doses administered were 6,149,729,669.
The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 43,225,044 and 692,547 respectively, according to the CSSE.
In terms of infections, India follows in second place with 33,697,581 cases.
The other worst countries with over 3 million cases are Brazil (21,381,790 ), the UK (7,772,623 ), Russia (7,355,883), France (7,094,334), Turkey (7,066,658), Iran (5,559,691), Argentina (5,253,765 ), Colombia (4,954,376), Spain (4,953,930), Italy (4,665,049), Indonesia (4,211,460), Germany (4,216,507) and Mexico (3,645,599), the CSSE figures showed.
Nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Brazil (595,446), India (447,194), Mexico (275,450), Peru (199,314), Russia (201,854), Indonesia (141,709), the UK (136,736), Italy (130,807), Colombia (126,219), Iran (119,888), France (117,348) and Argentina (115,038).