New Delhi, Feb 20 (IANS): The number of new Covid-19 cases continues to surge this week, with India recording 13,993 new cases in the last 24 hours on Saturday and the overall tally mounting to 1,09,77,387, health officials said.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said that there were 101 more fatalities, taking the overall toll to 1,56,212.

The country had been recording less than 15,000 fresh infections daily over the past month, ahead of the renewed spike.

The rise in cases has been reported from several places, including Maharashtra, Punjab and Karnataka.

On Friday, the count of new cases was 13,193, on February 18 it was 12,881, on February 17 it was 11,610, on February 16 the number was 9,121 and on February 15 had 11,649 cases.

The Health Ministry officials had said that the average daily new infections for the past 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 was 9,633 recorded on June 3.

As per the Ministry's data, there are 1,43,127 active cases at present after 10,307 patients were discharged in a day. Till now, 1,06,78,048 persons have been discharged so far.

The recovery rate has remained at 97.27 percent, while the fatality rate is 1.42 percent.

The ministry also informed that 7,86,618 samples were tested on Friday. The cumulative tests are done by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) so far stand at 21,02,61,480.

Meanwhile, more than a crore (1,07,15,204) doses of corona vaccine have been administered in the country since the drive began on January 16 after approval for the '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 much earlier.