India on Thursday recorded 18,855 new cases of COVID-19, the Union Health Ministry’s data released on Friday showed. 163 people died of the coronavirus on Thursday.

Till now, India has recorded 10,720,048 COVID-19 cases and 154,010 deaths.

There are 171,686 active virus cases in the country, while 10,394,352 have recovered.

Also read: India is among most successful nations in saving lives from COVID-19, says PM Modi at World Economic Forum

A total of 195,081,079 samples tested for COVID-19 up to January 28. Of these, 742,306 samples were tested on Friday, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

India recorded its first virus case on January 30, last year. It is the second worst-hit country by the coronavirus, which first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, in late 2019.

Also read: WHO experts begin probe into coronavirus origin in China

The United States remains the worst-hit nation, with over 25,756,351 million cases and 432,971 deaths, the tally by Johns Hopkins University showed.

Globally, the virus has infected 101,402,676 people and killed 2,188,745 of them.