India's COVID-19 tally rises to 26,289,290 with over 250,000 new cases

NEW DELHI, May 22 (Xinhua) -- India's COVID-19 tally rose to 26,289,290 with 257,299 new cases registered in the past 24 hours, said the federal Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday.

A total of 4,194 deaths were recorded since Friday morning, taking the death toll to 295,525. The single-day deaths have once again peaked beyond the 4,000-mark for the past two days after declining to 3,874 on Thursday.

There are still 2,923,400 active cases in the country, a decrease of 104,525 in the past 24 hours. The number of active cases has been on the decline over the past few days, after a continuous surge since mid-April.

A total of 23,070,365 people have been cured and discharged from hospitals so far across the country.

Most of the states in the country have imposed night curfews and partial or complete lockdowns.

So far over 193 million vaccination doses have been administered to the people across the country, and a total of 1,458,895 vaccine doses were given on Friday alone.

Presently the third phase of COVID-19 vaccination is underway, covering all people aged 18 years and above.

Meanwhile, the federal government has ramped up COVID-19 testing facilities. As many as 326,484,155 tests have been conducted till Friday, out of which 2,066,285 tests were conducted on Friday alone, said the Indian Council of Medical Research on Saturday.

Three types of vaccines are being administered to people in India, including the Covishield, the Covaxin and the Russia-made Sputnik-V.