The death toll in India due to COVID-19 rose to 681 and the number of cases to 21,393 in the country on Thursday, according to the federal health ministry.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 16,454, while 4,257 people have been cured and discharged, one patient has migrated, it said.
The total number of cases includes 77 foreign nationals.
A total of 29 deaths were reported since Wednesday evening, of which 18 fatalities were reported from Maharashtra, eight from Gujarat, two from Rajasthan and one from Delhi, the ministry said.
Of the 681 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 269 fatalities, followed by Gujarat at 103, Madhya Pradesh at 80, Delhi at 48, Rajasthan at 27, Andhra Pradesh at 24 and Telengana at 23.
The death toll reached 21 in Uttar Pradesh, 18 in Tamil Nadu and 17 in Karantaka. Punjab has registered 16 deaths, while West Bengal has reported 15 fatalities due to COVID-19 so far.
The disease has claimed five lives in Jammu and Kashmir. Kerala, Jharkhand and Haryana have recorded three deaths each.
Bihar has reported two deaths, while Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Assam have reported one fatality each, according to the ministry data.
However, a PTI tally of the figures reported by various states as on Wednesday evening showed 683 deaths in the country.
There has been a lag in the federal figures, compared to the number of deaths announced by different states, which officials attribute to procedural delays in assigning the cases to individual states.
“Our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research),” the ministry said on its website. It also said the state-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation.
