Doubling time of coronavirus cases in India improves to 17.4 days: Health Ministry

India's health ministry on Friday reported 10,956 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours taking the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country to 2,97,535.

India has become the fourth worst-affected country due to the pandemic as it added around 10,000 cases for the fourth consecutive day.

According to the Health Ministry data, the doubling rate/time continues to improve and has increased from 3.4 days at the beginning of lockdown to 17.4 days currently.

Apart from improvement in the doubling rate, it said the recovery rate of patients has also become better. "Recovery rate of COVID positive cases continues to increase and is currently stands at 49.47 per cent," the ministry said.

A total of 1,47,194 people have recovered while 1,41,842 patients are under active medical supervision. It said that in the 24 hour period till 8 am, a total of 6,166 patients have been cured of COVID-19.

(With inputs from agencies)