Harsh Vardhan said India carried out 86,000 coronavirus tests on Saturday (File)
No coronavirus case has been reported in 10 states and Union territories in 24 hours, and the recovery rate has increased to over 30 per cent, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Sunday, even as the COVID-19 death toll rose to 2,109 and the number of cases to 62,939.
The minister said India was moving fast on the path of success in the fight against the pandemic.
According to the health ministry data, 1,511 COVID-19 patients were cured of the respiratory infection in the last 24 hours -- the highest number of recoveries in a day.
The country registered 128 fatalities and 3,277 cases in the last 24 hours, according to the ministry. The total number of cases include 111 foreign nationals.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 41,472, while 19,357 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, it said.
India carried out 86,000 coronavirus tests on Saturday and the country's daily testing capacity now stands at 95,000, he told reporters after inspecting a COVID-19 care centre in the Mandoli area.
He also said that central teams are being sent to Delhi and nine states to assist the governments in managing the outbreak of the disease.
Apart from Delhi, central teams are being sent to Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and West Bengal.
"It is also heartening to note that in 10 states and Union Territories, no new case has emerged in the last 24 hours. These are the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Manipur, Odisha, Mizoram and Puducherry," the minister said.
He also said that four states and UTs -- Daman and Diu, Sikkim, Nagaland and Lakshadweep have not reported a single case of the virus till date.
Later in a series of tweets, Harsh Vardhan said the National Institute of Virology in Pune has successfully developed the first indigenous antibody detection kit for COVID-19 that will play a critical role in surveillance for the infection.
The kits can test 90 samples together in a single run of 2.5 hours, so that healthcare professionals can proceed quickly with necessary next steps, he said.