New Delhi, Apr 28 (IANS): As many as 20 countries together having the same population size as that of India have reported 84 times the number of cases detected in this country, according to the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday.

Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary Health Ministry, said compared to the 20 nations where maximum COVID-19 cases have been reported, India has reported only 1/200 times the number of deaths as the total number of deaths in these 20 countries.

The recovery rate of coronavirus patients has increased to 23.3%, he added.

"From the WHO data on April 27, we observed the number of confirmed cases in these 20 countries and compared it with confirmed cases in India. We found 1/84 cases reported in India or 84% more cases have been reported in these countries. These 20 countries have reported nearly 200% more deaths than in India", said Agarwal.

He said in the last 24 hours, 1,543 new COVID-19 cases have been reported, taking the total number of cases to 29,435, and no new cases of COVID-19 has been reported from 17 districts in the last 28 days.

Agarwal said the rate of doubling of cases has increased to 10.2 days and that total 6,868 patients have been cured so far and 684 patients have recovered in the past 24 hours, which takes the recovery rate to 23.3%. As many as 934 deaths have been reported so far from the viral infection.

The Health Ministry said that caregivers should have three-layered protection and masks while handling patients, and those in home isolation should be confined to a room where they should have limited interaction with family members.