India records over 70,000 COVID-19 cases in last 24 hours

India recorded on Wednesday 72,330 new COVID-19 cases, the Union Health Ministry’s data released on Thursday showed. 459 deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to reach 162,927

India’s COVID-19 tally stands at 12,221,665.

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There are  584,055 active virus cases, while 11,474,683 have recovered.

A total of 244,798,621 samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus, including 1,125,681 samples tested on Wednesday, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said.

India has launched the third phase of the COVID-19 vaccination drive on Thursday. 65,117,896 people have received at least one dose of the vaccine in the first two phases.

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The country has approved two vaccines: Covaxin and Covishield. The latter is AstraZeneca/University of Oxford’s jab that is being manufactured at Pune-based Serum Institute of India.

Covaxin is India’s indigenous jab developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.