New Delhi, July 26 : As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India crossed 13.8 lakh on Sunday, over 36,000 patients were cured in the last 24 hours, a record so far. As per the latest data from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), the highest ever recoveries in a single day was reported in the last 24 hours with 36,145 COVID-19 patients cured and discharged. This has taken the total number of recoveries to 8,85,576, achieving another high of fast approaching 64 per cent recovery rate. "The recovery rate stands at 63.92 per cent on Sunday. This means more patients are recovering thus maintaining the steadily widening difference between recovered and active COVID-19 patients. This gap has crossed 4 lakh and currently stands at 4,17,694. Recovered cases are 1.89 times the active cases (4,67,882)," the Ministry said. The Central government has advised all states and union territories to effectively implement the strategy of "Test, Track and Treat". For the first time, the Ministry further said, a record number of more than 4,40,000 tests have been conducted in a single day. With 4,42,263 samples tested in the last 24 hours, the number of Test Per Million (TPM) has further increased to 11,805 and cumulative testing to 1,62,91,331, the data shared by the Ministry reveals. For the first time, the data mentions, government labs have set a new record of testing 3,62,153 samples and the private labs have also scaled a new high of 79,878 samples tested in a single day. The aggressive testing along with ramped up hospital infrastructure by combining public and private sector efforts has enabled early identification and prompt triaging of COVID-19 patients leading to lower fatalities, it said. As a result, the case fatality rate is progressively falling and currently, it is 2.31 per cent, securing one of the lowest fatality rates in the world. On Sunday, India, however, recorded 48,661 new cases in the last 24 hours taking the total tally to 13,85,522, including 32,063 deaths, 675 in just one day. Maharashtra remained the worst hit state after recording a single-day spike of 9,251 cases taking the state's tally to 3,66,368 of which 13,389 people have died of the deadly disease. Maharashtra is followed by Tamil Nadu (2,06,737), Delhi (1,29,531), Karnataka (90,942) and Andhra Pradesh (88,671). The national capital recorded a single-day spike of 1,142 cases taking the tally beyond 1.29 lakh cases of which 12,657 were active as 3,806 people died and 1,13,068 were cured and discharged. States and Union Territories which recorded less than 1,000 cases were Andaman and Nicobar Islands (290), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (860), Chandigarh (852), Mizoram (361), Meghalaya (646) and Sikkim (499). On the global front, India remained the third worst-hit nation in the world. The United States remained the worst-hit nation with 41,78,021 cases followed by Brazil which has 23,94,513. The total casualties across the globe reached 6,44,528 with 1,46,460 alone in the United States followed by 86,449 in Brazil. /IANS