India's COVID-19 cases touch grim milestone of 5-lakh mark

The country added 17,296 fresh cases of the contagion in 24 hours between Thursday and Friday mornings taking the overall tally to 4,90,401.

The death count in India jumped to 15,301 with 407 new fatalities.

Maharashtra remained the worst-hit state with over 5,000 new cases, which took the tally to 1,52,765.

Maharashtra is followed by Delhi and Tamil Nadu. The south Indian state also recorded its highest single-day spike with 3,509 new cases, taking the infection count to 70,977.

Delhi, which is already facing a surge in the cases and an acute problem of shortage of beds to treat patients, reported 3,390 fresh coronavirus cases on Friday, taking the tally in the city to 73,780.

Meanwhile,  West Bengal on Friday reported its highest single-day spike as 542 more people tested positive in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of confirmed infections in the state to 16,190.

Both West Bengal and Delhi governments have announced to keep the schools closed till July 31.

The Indian government earlier in the day extended the suspension of all international passenger flights till Jul 15 in a bid to curb the spread of the pandemic.

Earlier, the Indian Railways informed that it will cancel all tickets booked for regular trains between July 1 and August 12 amid a steep surge in the spread of the contagion.

As per the government record, India has tested a total sample of  77,76,228 patients so far.

The recovered cases have exceeded the active cases by 96,173 and the rate of recovery stands at 58.24 pct, the Union Health Ministry's COVID-19 bulletin stated.

India is now only behind the United States, Brazil and Russia in the global spectrum of the pandemic's effect.