October 17, 2020: With a spike of 62,212 new cases and 837 deaths in the last 24 hours, India's COVID-19 count reached 74,32,681 on Saturday according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).

As per the MoHFW, the COVID-19 count includes 7,95,087 active cases and 65,24,596 cured/discharged/migrated cases. With 837 deaths in the last 24 hours, the total death count due to the disease has reached 1,12,998.

The active cases have dropped below the 8 lakh mark for the first time in one-and-half months, the ministry said.

As per the MoHFW, "This significant achievement is the outcome of Centre-led targetted strategies leading to a high number of recoveries and steadily falling number of fatalities."

With 1,90,192 total active cases, Maharashtra continues to be the worst affected state by COVID-19 in the country. While 13,44,368 patients have recovered from the disease in the state, 41,502 have died so far.

Among other severely affected states, Karnataka has 1,12,446 active cases, while 6,28,588 people have recovered, 10,356 have succumbed to the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a total of 9,32,54,017 samples have been tested in the country for COVID-19 till Friday. This includes 9,99,090 samples tested on October 16.