NEW DELHI, May 8 (Xinhua) -- India's COVID-19 tally reached 21,892,676 on Saturday as 401,078 new cases were registered across the country in the past 24 hours, said the federal health ministry.
This is the fourth time this month when over 400,000 cases have been registered in a single day.
Besides, as many as 4,187 deaths, maximum so far, took place in the country since Friday morning, taking the total death toll to 238,270, added the health ministry.
There are still 3,723,446 active cases in the country, with an increase of 78,282 active cases through Friday. A total of 17,930,960 people have been cured and discharged from hospitals so far across the country.
The COVID-19 figures continue to peak in the country every day, but the federal government has ruled out imposing a complete lockdown to contain the worsening situation. Some states have imposed night curfews or partial lockdowns.
Earlier this week Principal Scientific Advisor to India's Federal Government K. Vijay Raghavan had stated that a third COVID-19 wave was inevitable in the country.
Delhi has been put under a third successive lockdown till May 10. While some school examinations has have been cancelled, others have been postponed in the wake of COVID-19 situation.
The number of daily active cases has been on the rise over the past few weeks. In January the number of daily cases in the country had come down to below-10,000.
January 16 was a crucial day in India's fight against the pandemic as the nationwide vaccination drive was kicked off during the day. So far 167,346,544 vaccination doses have been administered to the people across the country.
Meanwhile, the federal government has ramped up COVID-19 testing facilities across the country, as over 300 million tests have been conducted so far.
As many as 300,410,043 tests were conducted till Friday, out of which 1,808,344 tests were conducted on Friday alone, said the latest data issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Saturday.
Two types of vaccines are being administered to the people in India. While the Covishield vaccine, made by the Serum Institute of India (SII), was supplied to all states, the Covaxin vaccine, made by the Bharat Biotech International Limited, was supplied to only 12 states.
India received its first doses of Sputnik V, the Russian-made vaccine, on May 1.