New Delhi : India witnessed its highest spike of Covid cases adding over 17,000 patients in just 24 hours taking the tally barely 9,500 short of the grim 5 lakh mark. Over 65 per cent of these were from Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu, the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry data revealed on Friday.
A total of 17,296 new cases took the tally up to 4,90,401 as India continued to be the fourth worst hit among 213 countries. It is now less than 2 lakh cases away from Russia, which is in the third spot behind the US and Brazil, respectively.
According to the Health Ministry data, 407 new deaths were reported in the last 24 hours taking the toll to 15,301 in the country.
The overall number of global COVID-19 cases has topped 9.5 million,