The Union Health Ministry has said novel coronavirus is still in the local transmission stage in India and yet to move to the community transmission phase. (Photo:PTI)

Following the sharpest single-day spike in India, the total number of the novel coronavirus cases has climbed to 1,590 after over 270 fresh cases were recorded on Tuesday. The death toll due to Covid-19, meanwhile, has climbed to 45.

India has seen an increase of over 277 cases in a single day while the number of active cases is around 1,450 with 148 people either been cured or discharged. Follow LIVE UPDATES on coronavirus outbreak

Maharashtra has reported the most deaths (10), followed by Gujarat (6), Punjab (4), Madhya Pradesh (4), Karnataka (3), West Bengal (3), Delhi (2), Kerala (2), Telangana (2) and Jammu and Kashmir (2). Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh have reported a death each.

So far, the highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases have been reported from Maharashtra with 302 infections, followed by Kerala at 241. 57 new cases on Tuesday took the total number of positive Covid-19 cases in Tamil Nadu to 124. The number of cases in Delhi, meanwhile, has gone up to 120.

The cases in Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh have gone up to 101 each. The number of cases has risen to 77 in Telangana and 74 in Gujarat, while the number of cases in Rajasthan has climbed to 93. It has risen to 55 in Jammu and Kashmir.

Madhya Pradesh has 66 positive patients. Punjab has reported 41 cases, while 40 Covid-19 cases have been detected in Haryana. There are 40 patients in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal (27), Bihar (21) and Ladakh (13).

10 cases have been reported from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Chandigarh and Chhattisgarh have recorded 13 cases and 8 cases respectively, while Uttarakhand has reported seven cases. Goa has reported five coronavirus cases, while Himachal Pradesh and Odisha have reported three cases each. Puducherry, Mizoram and Manipur have reported a case each. On Tuesday, Jharkhand reported its first coronavirus patient -- a Malaysian woman who was among the 24 persons found staying in a mosque in Ranchi. Similarly, Assam also reported its first coronavirus case today.

6 who attended Nizamuddin congregation die of COVID-19

Six people from Telangana who attended a religious congregation in Delhi's Nizamuddin died on Monday due to the novel coronavirus.

"Coronavirus has spread among some of those who attended a religious prayer meeting from March 13 to 15 at Markaz in Nizamuddin area in Delhi," according to an official release. "Among those who attended were some persons from Telangana."

Two of the six died at the Gandhi Hospital, one each in two private hospitals, and one each in Nizamabad and Gadwal towns, the statement said, without mentioning the time of their deaths.

The special teams under the collectors have identified the persons who came in contact with the deceased and they are shifted to the hospitals, it said.

Police and paramilitary personnel cordoned off a major area in Nizamuddin West in south Delhi on Monday and over 200 people have been kept in isolation in hospitals after several people who took part in a religious congregation there showed symptoms of coronavirus.

The Telangana government asked those who participated in the prayers to inform the authorities. It will conduct tests and offer treatment to them free of cost, according to the release.

The government also requested the people to alert if they come to know about those who participated in the prayers.

More testing labs being opened across the country

Principal Scientific Adviser to the government K VijayRaghavan on Monday said the ICMR is amplifying coronavirus test sites and more laboratories are being opened across the country.

He said the Indian industry is also working on vaccines, re-purposing, critical-care treatment and partnering with academia and start-ups.

"Many of you have pointed out the need for more diagnostic tests. The @ICMRDELHI is amplifying test sites and you will see many more being done. More laboratories are being opened for testing across states," he said in a series of tweets.

He also said efforts to increase test capacity by the 'pooling' of samples are being evaluated.

"There are new tests being rolled-out, globally, for the presence, or traces of the virus having visited a person. These can be useful as a first-pass, even if they are cruder than the 'gold-standard' RT-PCR. Indian labs are developing these kinds of tests too," he said.

He said the Indian start-ups and incubators have been "astounding' and working on the highest end drug-repurposing, using AI to predict targets, to making equipment and tools for the treatment of coronavirus.

(To help explain the scale of coronavirus outbreak in India, IndiaToday.in is regularly analysing key data and trends related to this health emergency. These figures are updated daily to provide you with the latest information)

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