NEW DELHI — India's COVID-19 case tally crossed the 5.3 million-mark with a spike of 93,337 new cases in last 24 hours, data released by the health ministry on Saturday morning showed. The total number of confirmed cases now stands at 53,08,015 including 10,13,964 active cases. The country also witnessed 1,247 deaths during the 24-hour period, it said.

With record 95,885 recoveries, India has overtaken the United States to record the highest coronavirus recoveries in the world, the health ministry tweeted. According to the latest data, more than 4.2 million people have beaten COVID-19 in the country till now. Some 4.1million people have recovered in the US.

The ministry credited the country's high recovery rate (79.28 percent) — the highest in the world — to the Central government-led "focused, calibrated, responsive and effective measures of early identification through high and aggressive testing, prompt surveillance and tracking coupled with standardised high quality clinical care have together resulted in this global achievement".

In the central state of Rajasthan, seven deaths and 813 new coronavirus cases were reported. Two deaths were reported from Hanumangarh while Ajmer, Banswara, Jaipur, Jaisalmer and Sikar reported one death each, taking the total number of fatalities in the state to 1,315, according to an official report.

In the northeastern state of Sikkim, three ministers of the Prem Singh Tamang government and two BJP MLAs have tested positive for COVID-19.

All legislators and staff of the state legislative assembly were tested for COVID-19 on Friday as a precautionary measure ahead of the proposed one-day assembly session on Monday.

Delhi has been witnessing a "downward trend" in the COVID-19 positivity rate, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said.

"The positivity rate was 6.76 percent on Friday. It has remained below 7 percent in the last two-three days. Last week, it was around 8 percent," he said.

The COVID-19 tally of Andaman and Nicobar Islands rose to 3,631 on Saturday as 27 more people tested positive for the infection, a health official said. Twenty-three infections were detected during contact tracing, while four new patients have travel history, he said.

The nascent southern state of Telangana added 2,123 new cases, pushing the total infection count to 1,69,169, while death toll rose to 1,025 with nine more fatalities.

Out of the 2,123 fresh cases, 305 were reported from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), followed by Rangareddy (185), Medchal Malkajgiri (149), Nalgonda (135), Karimnagar (112) and other districts, a state government bulletin said. — Agencies