India recorded 403,738 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, the Union Health Ministry’s data released on Sunday showed. 4,092 fatalities were recorded in the past 24 hours across the nation, which took the COVID death toll to 242,362. India’s tally of COVID-19 cases has now reached 22,296,414. 

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On Saturday, 386,444 people recovered from the COVID-19 disease. The tally of recovered cases has now reached 18,317,404. There are currently 3,736,648 active cases of coronavirus in India. 

A total of 302,275,471 samples have been tested till May 8, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said. This includes 1,865,428 samples tested on Saturday. 

Since the mass vaccination drive against COVID-19 was kicked off in India on January 16, over 169.1 million people have received at least one of the two doses of vaccine. The Centre on May 1 opened up vaccination for all adults.

Also read: Rural India in trouble as cases, deaths quadruple in 2nd COVID wave: Report

Currently, two vaccines — Covaxin and Covishield — are being administered in India. The former is the indigenous jab developed at Hyderabad’s Bharat Biotech. Covishield is AstraZeneca/Oxford’s jab that is being manufactured at the Pune-based Serum Institute. A third vaccine, Russia’s Sputnik V, has also been approved by India’s drug regulator for emergency use.

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The second wave of COVID-19 in India has been very aggressive and fast-spreading. The country has overtaken Brazil and the US in the number of daily cases. Several states have imposed lockdowns and strict restrictions amid shortages of hospital beds, oxygen and medicines.