New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS): As the number of new Covid-19 cases showed an upward trend over the past three days, India reported 13,193 new cases in the last 24 hours on Friday and the overall tally mounted to 1,09,63,394, health officials said.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said that there were 97 more Covid fatalities, taking the overall toll to 1,56,111.

In the past month, the country has been recording less than 15,000 new infections daily with the toll not going over the 200-mark.

However, in the past few days the coronavirus cases in various parts of the country suddenly showed a spike.

On Thursday, the count of new cases was 12,881, on February 17 it was 11,610, on February 16 the number was 9,121 and February 15 had 11,649 cases.

Earlier, the health ministry officials said that the average daily new infections for the last 15 days were oscillating between 9,000 to 12,000 while the deaths were between 78 to 120.

On February 9, India had reported 9,110 new cases, the lowest this year so far. Last year, the lowest 9,633 cases were recorded on June 3.

As per the Ministry's data, there are 1,39,542 active cases at present after 10,896 patients were discharged in a day. Till now, 1,06,67,741 persons have been discharged so far.

The recovery rate has increased to 97.30 per cent, while the fatality rate is down to 1.42 per cent.

The ministry also informed that 7,71,071 samples were tested on Thursday. The cumulative tests done by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) so far stands at 20,94,74,862.

Meanwhile, more than 10 million (1,01,88,007) doses of corona vaccine have been administered in the country since the drive began on January 16 after approval for 'Covishield' and 'Covaxin'.

As per the Union Health Ministry, India has become the fastest nation in terms of the vaccine doses administered, even though many countries had launched their vaccination campaigns earlier than her.