Vikrant Shekhawat : May 17, 2021, 10:40 AM
New Delhi: India recorded 281,386 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the last 24 hours, the Union health ministry update showed on Monday. With this, the total tally reached 24,965,463.The data updated at 8am showed that 4,106 people succumbed to the disease in the said period, which pushed up the death toll to 274,390.The number of active cases - a grim marker of the spread of the disease - came down to 3,516,997 from Sunday's 3,618,458.Though the active cases have been going down in the past few days, the health ministry said on Sunday that 10 states account for 74.69 per cent of these cases. These states are: Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.It also said that the country's positivity rate - the percentage of samples which test positive from total samples tested - has dropped to 16.98 per cent from 24.47 per cent recorded on May 3.Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday discussed the Covid-19 situation with chief ministers of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Puducherry over a phone call.Meanwhile, the cumulative number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the country crossed 18.29 crore mark on Sunday under phase 3 of the nationwide vaccination drive. The data on health ministry's website showed that 18,29,26,460 vaccine doses have been administered till now.The Centre on Sunday released guidelines to check the spread of the coronavirus disease in rural areas. It urged states to ensure community-based and primary health centre services to manage the situation while stressing on sensitisation of ground workers on containment, surveillance and use of rapid antigen testing (RAT) for screening, and tele-consultation.Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan along with Member (Health) of NITI Aayog Dr VK Paul also chaired a high-level video conference meeting with all the states and union territories.The state health secretaries were asked to hold daily regular review meetings starting Monday with medical officers and block levels nodal officers to ensure that the standard operating procedures (SOPs) and the advisories percolate to the grassroots level.