India’s Covid cases rise over 1,200pc in a week

The number of active Covid-19 cases in India has crossed 3,000, with Kerala, Maharashtra and Delhi being the worst-hit states in the latest wave.

According to the data available on the official website of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, there are 3,395 active Coronavirus cases in the country as of Saturday morning, a rise of about 1,200 percent from last week.

India had 257 active cases on May 22 and 1,010 by May 26.  The country reported 685 new coronavirus cases between Friday and Saturday, along with four deaths, the data showed.

Kerala, the worst-hit state in India, reported 189 new Covid cases on Friday, and has 1,336 active infections, according to the data.

It is followed by Maharashtra (467), Delhi (375), Gujarat (265), Karnataka (234), West Bengal (205), Tamil Nadu (185) and Uttar Pradesh (117).

Rajasthan (60), Puducherry (41), Haryana (26), Andhra Pradesh (17) and Madhya Pradesh (16) are other states that are seeing an uptick in Covid cases. The data also showed that India has reported 26 deaths this year.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said the genome sequencing of samples in the west and south has shown that the new variants are sub-variants of Omicron, a strain that was behind the big Covid wave in India in 2022.