New Delhi, Feb 26 : Fresh Covid-19 cases are showing worryingly upward trend over the past one week, with the country reporting 16,577 cases in the last 24 hours taking the overall tally to 1,10,63,491 on Friday, Union Health Ministry said. While the latest number of fresh cases is 161 less than the previous day, the situation continues to remain worrisome since the positivity rate has been rising gradually, pushing it to 1.41 per cent. As per the Ministry's data, there are 1,55,996 active cases at present after 12,179 patients were discharged in a day. Meanwhile, 120 more deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours, taking the overall toll to 156825, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said. India has been recording less than 15,000 new infections daily with the toll not crossing the 200-mark over the last one month. The experts have expressed a number of possibilities which could be owed to the stride ranging from lax attitude of people towards following Covid protocols to likeability of "mutations and new strains" causing the surge, as has been studied by the laboratories involved in Covid detection across the country. Till now, 1,07,50,680 persons have been discharged so far. The recovery rate has reduced to 97.17 per cent, a change of 0.8 per cent from the previous day. Meanwhile, the fatality rate remains 1.42 per cent. The Centre informed on Thursday that 90 per cent of the new cases reported came from seven states including Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh The Ministry also informed that 8,31,807 samples were tested on Thursday. The cumulative tests done by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) so far stands at 21,46,61,465. So far, 1,3472,643 doses of corona vaccine have been administered in the country since the drive began on January 16 after approval for 'Covishield' and 'Covaxin'. As per the Union Health Ministry, India has become the fastest nation in terms of the vaccine doses administered, even though many countries had launched their vaccination campaigns much earlier. /IANS