New Delhi, Aug 2 (IANS): With 54,735 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, India on Sunday crossed the 17 lakh mark with an overall 17,50,723 cases, fresh data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare revealed.

A totol of 853 deaths were also reported in this period.

Out of the total 17,50,723 cases, 5,67,730 cases were active, 11,45,629 people recovered from the disease and were discharged, while 37,364 persons have lost their lives in the fight against the deadly virus.

With a recovery rate of 64.53 per cent, a total of 51,255 people were discharged in last 24 hours, the Ministry said, adding that the fatality rate remained at 2.15 per cent.

A total of 1,98,21,831 samples have been tested so far, of which 4,63,172 were tested in the last 24 hours.

India currently has a total of 1,344 laboratories which are functional and capable of carrying out COVID-19 testing, of which 913 are government while 431 are private.

Maharashtra remained the worst-hit state with total number of cases crossing 4,20,000, with 14,994 deaths out of which 265 occurred in the last 24 hours.

Tamil Nadu comes in second with 2,45,859 cases and 3,935 deaths. The state registered 97 fatalities in the last 24 hours.

Amid the grim situation, good news was coming in from Delhi, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh which saw a decline in the number of active cases.

While Delhi reported 37 less cases in the last 24 hours, Haryana's active case count went down by 180 and Himachal Pradesh's by 14 cases.

Mizoram, Tripura and Uttarakhand too saw a decline in the number of active cases.

While on the global front, India still remains the third worst hit nation.

The US (46,20,419) and Brazil (27,07,877) remain the two worst affected nations.

The total of 6,84,111 people have died due to this deadly virus across the world, with 1,54,361 alone in the US followed by 93,563 in Brazil and 47,472 in Mexico.

On the recovery front, 1,05,02,330 people have won this fight against the deadly virus of which 20,37,982 were from Brazil, 14,61,885 were from the US while 11,45,629 are in India.