Record 14,516 corona cases take India's tally close to 4L

New Delhi, June 20 (IANS) India on Saturday witnessed its worst-ever spike of COVID-19 cases as it registered 14,516 positive cases, the highest ever, in the last 24 hours. With this the total corona tally in India reached 3,95,048, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data revealed.

There is a steady rise in cases for the last nine days, when India crossed over 10,000 cases each day.

With 375 deaths in the last 24 hours, a total of 12,948 people have succumbed to the deadly disease since the first case was reported on January 30, the Health Ministry data said.

For the 11th consecutive day, the number of recoveries -- 2,13,830 -- remained higher than the active ones -- 168,269. More than half of the patients who contracted the disease have recovered so far.

Maharashtra remained the worst-hit state in the country with total cases crossing the the one lakh mark -- 124,331 cases, including 5,893 deaths.

Maharashtra alone reported 3,827 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours with 142 fatalities due to pandemic.

Tamil Nadu, which is second most affected state witnessed a spike of 2,115 cases taking the total tally to 54,449.

The national capital recorded 53,116 total corona cases. Delhi witnessed a record growth of 3,137 cases in the last 24 hours and a total of 2,035 deaths.

The states with more than 10,000 cases include Gujarat with 26,141 cases and 1,618 deaths, Uttar Pradesh (15,785), Rajasthan (14,156), Madhya Pradesh (11,582) and West Bengal (13,090).

Meanwhile, the total number of global COVID-19 cases have surged to over 8.6 million, while the deaths were nearing 4,60,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

By Saturday morning, the total number of cases stood at 86,39,023, while the fatalities increased to 4,59,437, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.

With 22,19,976 cases and 1,19,099 deaths, the US continues with the world's highest number of COVID-19 infections and fatalities, according to the CSSE.

Brazil comes in the second place with 1,032,913 infections and 48,954 deaths.