Maharashtra on Friday recorded nine fresh coronavirus cases, while no new death linked to the infection was registered in the state, said the health department.

With this, the state's overall Covid-19 tally rose to 81,37,181, while the toll remained unchanged at 1,48,421, said a health department bulletin.

The state's coronavirus recovery rate stood at 98.17 per cent, while the case fatality rate was 1.82 per cent.

The bulletin said six patients recovered from the coronavirus infection in the last 24 hours, taking their cumulative count to 79,88,684 and leaving the state with 76 active cases.

It said since December 24, when the health department started screening travellers coming from overseas in the wake of a spike in cases in some countries, 7,18,950 international passengers have arrived at Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur airports.

Of these, RT-PCR test was done on 16,189 and 29 positive swab samples were sent for genome sequencing, said the bulletin.
All positive samples are referred for WGS (Whole Genome Sequencing), it said.

Genome sequencing is a sophisticated laboratory test that can map out the whole genetic makeup of a virus from a patient's swab sample and help in the detection of a new variant.

These 29 coronavirus positive patients included 15 from Maharashtra -- seven from Mumbai, four from Pune and one each from Navi Mumbai, Amravati, Aurangabad and Sangli.

The rest comprised five from Gujarat, two each from Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, and one each from Goa, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Odisha and Telangana.