India records biggest spike in coronavirus cases so far, with more than 1m in just three days

India has reported almost 380,000 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours in its biggest daily spike so far.

The nation has recorded 379,259 new infections in the past day and more than one million in the past three days alone.

The nation of 1.4 billion people has over 18 million cases in total, according to official figures.

It has recorded 3645 new deaths today, health ministry data showed.

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Today was the eighth day in a row total cases topped 300,000, CNN said.

At least 204,832 people have died as a result of the pandemic in the nation, with India the fourth country to top 200,000 deaths after the USA, Brazil and Mexico.

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However, India's true death toll is believed to be far higher than is being reported.

Mortality data was poor even before the pandemic, with most people dying at home and their deaths often going unregistered.

The practice is particularly prevalent in rural areas, where the virus is now spreading fast.

This is partly why this nation of has recorded fewer deaths than Brazil and Mexico, which have smaller populations and fewer confirmed COVID-19 cases.

While determining exact numbers in a pandemic is difficult, experts say an overreliance on official data that didn't reflect the true extent of infections contributed to authorities being blindsided by a huge surge in recent weeks.

India launched its vaccination drive on January 16 and will now open up vaccinations to everyone above the age of 18 on May 1, CNN said,

It has given out more than 150m vaccines, but just three per cent of the vast population are fully vaccinated.

-reported with AP