By TRN Online, Kathmandu, Aug. 11: With 2,616 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed on Wednesday, the nation's novel coronavirus tally has reached 723,296.

In 10,907 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests done in the past 24 hours, a total of 2,616 persons were found infected with SARS-CoV-2, informed Dr. Krishna Prasad Poudel, spokesperson at the Ministry of Health and Population during the weekly press briefing.

Likewise, the virus infection was detected in 865 people of 5,749 antigen tests performed in the last 24 hours.

Of the new infections, 964 were reported in Kathmandu Valley including 109 in Bhaktapur, 192 in Lalitpur and 663 in Kathmandu.

Dr. Poudel said that the COVID-19 positivity rate was at 20 to 25 per cent. "This means, one in every four people are being detected with COVID-19," he said, adding that the infection rate was increasing daily.

He also said that Gandaki Province reported currently had the highest infection rate at 36.4 per cent, followed by Province 1 at 29 per cent and Karnali Province at 28. 4 per cent.

Currently, there are 38,033 active cases of COVID-19 across the nation of which, 3,220 are admitted to various institutional isolation while 34,813 patients are placed in home isolation. Similarly, 399 people are currently placed in quarantine.

Of the active patients, 796 are admitted to the ICU and 184 are under treatment with the ventilator facility.

Meanwhile, 1,885 COVID-19 patients receiving treatment in institutional isolation or staying in home isolation recovered from the infection in the last 24 hours. Nepal has now recorded 675,083 cases of recovery, and the recovery rate is at 93 per cent.

The MoHP on Wednesday added 30 fatalities to the nation's COVID-19 death toll, which has now reached 10,180.

According to the health ministry's report, a total of 1,086,515 people were vaccinated in the last week. Similarly, 112,407 PCR and antigen tests were performed, 25,469 new cases, 13,435 recoveries and 223 death were confirmed last week.