India on Sunday became the third-worst virus-hit country in the number of coronavirus cases after the US and Brazil.

Axar.az reports citing foreign media that India registered 24,248 positive cases in the last 24 hours taking the tally to 697,413, according to the Health Ministry.

The death toll climbed to 19,693 with 425 new fatalities.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, a total of 9,969,662 samples were tested for the disease in the country of around 1.3 billion population till July 5. Around 180,600 cases were tested on Sunday.

The tally in the worst-affected western state of Maharashtra jumped to 206,619 with 6,555 new cases reported in the last 24 hours.