India recorded 93,337 cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and 1,247 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the country’s tally past 5.3 million, according to the Union health ministry on Saturday. The health ministry’s dashboard showed at 8am that there were 1,013,964 active cases of Covid-19 and the death toll has risen to 85,619.

The health ministry said on Saturday that India has overtaken the United States to become No 1 in terms of global Covid-19 recoveries. According to the ministry, there are now 4,208,431 people who have been cured of the viral disease after 95,880 patients were discharged between Friday and Saturday. The recovery rate is now 79.28%.

India, the second worst-hit country in the world, has been reporting daily recoveries of more than 70,000 since the past 11 days. The government said on Friday that recovered cases are 4.04 times the number of active cases. The top five states with high active caseload are also the ones which are presently reporting a high level of recoveries, it added.

There were 59.8% of active cases being reported from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. These states are also contributing to 59.3% of the total recoveries. It said 90% of the new recoveries are reported from 16 states and U territories.

Maharashtra (19,522) contributed 22.31% of the new recoveries while Andhra Pradesh (12.24%), Karnataka (8.3%), Tamil Nadu (6.31%) and Chhattisgarh (6.0%) followed with 32.8% of the new recoveries. These states together contribute 55.1% of total new recoveries, the health ministry said.

The government attributed the “continuous streak of a very high level of recoveries” to the “effective clinical management and treatment protocols” issued by the Centre. “The Ministry of Health in active collaboration with AIIMS has been conducting the ‘National e-ICU on COVID-19 Management’ exercise which handholds ICU doctors of State/UT hospitals through the Centers of Excellence. Held twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday, these sessions have played a major role in India’s substantial rate of recovering and declining case fertility rate. So far, 19 such National e-ICUs have been held covering 249 hospitals of 28 States/UTs across the country,” it said.

“India has also allowed for rational use of ‘Investigational Therapies’ like Remdesevir, convalescent plasma and Tocilizumab and adopted measures such proning, use of high flow oxygen, non-invasive ventilation, use of steroids and anti-coagulants to aid recovery in COVID patients. Supervised home isolation, improved services of the ambulances for ferrying patients for prompt and timely treatment have enabled seamless and efficient patient management,” it added.

The country’s case fatality rate (CFR) was at 1.62%, according to the health ministry on Friday.

According to the Johns Hopkins UNiversity’s coronavirus tracker, there are 30,397,759 Covid-19 cases and 950,493 people have died because of the viral disease globally.