NEW DELHI, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- India's daily COVID-19 caseload increased to 15,754 during the past 24 hours, taking the total tally to 44,314,618 in the country, the federal health ministry said on Friday.
With the fresh cases, India's active caseload currently stands at 101,830.
The country also logged 47 related deaths during the past 24 hours, pushing the overall death toll to 527,253, the ministry said.
The daily positivity rate stands at 3.47 percent, and the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 3.90 percent.
So far, 43,685,535 people have been successfully cured and discharged from hospitals, of whom 15,220 were discharged during the past 24 hours.
According to the ministry, the cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded two billion doses and until Friday morning, 2,092,732,604 doses were administered.
On Wednesday, India's civil aviation watchdog, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), asked airlines to ensure that passengers wear masks inside planes and maintain hand hygiene in view of the rising number of COVID-19 cases.
Amid an increase in daily new cases, local governments in the Indian capital Delhi and the neighboring state of Punjab last week made the wearing of face masks in public places mandatory and asked officials to enforce the order by imposing fines on violators.
A local television news channel has quoted N K Arora, who is a member of the government's COVID-19 task force, as saying that strains of Omicron circulating in Delhi are more infectious than the base strain that surfaced in January this year and along with it, effectiveness of vaccines in preventing infections has dropped 20 to 30 percent.
In the wake of the detection of new variants, the Indian government is focusing on improving booster dose coverage as the uptake for the third dose has been low.
Recently, the ministry wrote to seven states, asking them to ensure adequate testing, promote COVID-19-appropriate behavior and increase the pace of vaccination to contain the ongoing increase in cases. ■