MUMBAI: India reported more than 64,000 new cases of the novel coronavirus in a single day, with more than 1,000 deaths in the same period, federal health ministry data showed on Wednesday.

The world's second-most populous country had 64,531 new infections, which took the virus tally to 2.8 million. The number of deaths rose 1,092 to 52,889.

India is third behind Brazil and the United States in terms of total number of cases and the outbreak has been spreading steadily from urban areas to smaller towns, where health infrastructure is rickety.