NEW DELHI, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- India's daily COVID-19 caseload Saturday decreased to 5,554, official data showed.
According to federal health ministry data released on Saturday morning, 5,554 new cases of COVID-19 were reported during the past 24 hours, taking the total tally to 44,490,283 in the country. The number of new cases on Friday was 6,093.
With the reporting of fresh cases, India's active caseload currently stands at 48,850.
The country also logged 18 related deaths during the past 24 hours, pushing the overall death toll to 528,139 since the beginning of the pandemic, the ministry said.
With the increase in cases, the daily positivity rate stands at 1.47 percent and the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 1.80 percent, the ministry data showed.
The ministry said so far 43,913,294 people have been successfully cured and discharged from hospitals, of whom 6,322 were discharged during the past 24 hours.
According to the health ministry, the cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage in the country has exceeded 2 billion doses and until Saturday morning 2,147,755,021 doses were administered.
India's Central Drugs Standard Control Organization on Tuesday cleared vaccine maker Bharat Biotech's nasal vaccine against COVID-19 for emergency use.
At present, the Indian government is focusing on improving booster dose coverage as the uptake for the third dose has been low.
Health experts say COVID-19 is a cyclical disease and will come in waves. ■
