The number of recovered COVID-19 patients has exceeded the total active cases in India for the first time on Wednesday, according to the Union health ministry data.
India reported close to 10,000 new instances of the infection in the last 24 hours till Wednesday 8 am, pushing the country's cumulative caseload to over 2.7 lakh.
The country has recorded 279 new fatalities due to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 7,745.
The number of active cases in the country stands at 1,33,632, while 1,35,205 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, the ministry said. "Thus, 48.99 per cent of the patients have recovered so far," an official said.
Dr Neeraj Gupta, professor in the Department of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, said the data shows that more and more people are recovering which is as per global trends that 80 per cent are likely to have mild disease and make 100 per cent recovery.
"This should provide hope to the people of India at large who are having a mortal fear of the disease. But then this should not make them complacent and people should follow social distancing and sanitization guidelines," Gupta said.
As per global evidence, 80 per cent of COVID cases are mild cases, while remaining 20 per cent may develop complications which would require hospitalisation.
Out of the hospitalised cases of COVID-19 only 5 per cent may require ICU care, an official said.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, a total of 50,61,332 samples have been tested till 9 am on Wednesday, with 1,45,216 samples been tested in the last 24 hours.
India currently is the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic after the United States, Brazil, Russia and the United Kingdom, according to data issued by the Johns Hopkins University.
