India has surpassed Italy's tally and became the sixth worst-hit COVID-19 nation in the world after the country has witnessed the biggest consecutive spikes in the cases across its territory amid the fifth phase of the lockdown and containment measures to combat the spread of the pandemic.

India's aberrant and uncertain state has come to revelation based on the data released by the US-based Johns Hopkins University and with the current place, India is the major affected country in Asia by transcending China, which introduced the pandemic to the rest of the world. In the last 24 hours till Saturday morning, India has reported 9,887 fresh cases, which is the biggest single-day spike for the country since the outbreak.

With the reporting, India's tally of COVID-19 cases stands at 2,36,657 so far. The country has also witnessed 294 deaths in the last 24 hours taking the death toll to 6,642. For the past three days, India has added at least 29,000 fresh cases signaling the rampant spread of the pandemic. According to the Union Health Ministry, India has 1,15,942 active cases as of Saturday morning while 1,14,073 have recovered and 6,642 had succumbed to the virus. The university's data has shown that Italy has reported 2,36,184 cases so far.

The Ministry said that the country has accounted for a 48.20 percent recovery rate. The states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Gujarat have larger contributions in the nation's tally of the number of cases as these states are majorly affected by the pandemic. Out of 6,642 fatalities, the ministry stated that 70 percent of the deaths are due to comorbid conditions.

On May 25, India has become the tenth worst-hit nation due to COVID-19 and within a fortnight, the country surpassed other major affected countries like Turkey, Germany, France, and Italy and it has got placed at six place which, at the current caseload, won't last long. Surpassing Italy has reflected that India must enhance the measures to contain the virus before it could take up the country to the top of the list.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected more than 6 million people across the globe and about 4 lakh had lost their lives since the outbreak. The first five countries in the list are the United States, Brazil, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Spain and these five nations account for nearly 50 to 60% percent in the global tally.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), India has emerged as the worst-hit country in the Asian continent as the tally has been getting doubled every three weeks in the country. The WHO has also noted that the South Asian countries including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, with the dense population haven't seen the explosion of cases but these countries have the risk of witnessing a serious explosion of cases.

The reports quoted WHO's Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan saying that 'India is still at a modest level as the country has reported over 2,00,000 cases with a population of 1.3 billion'. According to the reports, India stands at 12th place in the global death toll by reporting 6,641 deaths so far with more deaths from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi,  and Madhya Pradesh.

Must read: AMID THE LOCKDOWN, INDIA GETS INTO THE LIST OF TOP TEN WORST-HIT COUNTRIES BY COVID-19!