By TRN Online, Kathmandu, Mar. 21: The Ministry of Health and Population on Sunday confirmed 77 new cases of COVID-19, taking the nation's novel coronavirus tally to 275,906.

"In 3,181 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests done in the last 24 hours, 77 persons were found infected with SARS-CoV-2," informed Dr. Jageshwor Gautam, spokesperson at the Ministry of Health and Population in the regular press briefing.

Of the new infections, 41 were recorded in the Kathmandu Valley including two in Bhaktapur, five in Lalitpur and 34 in Kathmandu.

Currently, there are 969 active cases of COVID-19 of which, 211 are placed in institutional isolation and 758 are in home isolation. Likewise, a total of 48 people, mostly those who had returned from abroad are placed in quarantine across the nation.

Of the active patients, 31 are admitted to ICU and five are receiving treatment with the ventilator facility.

Meanwhile, 106 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 271,921 cases of recovery and the recovery rate is at 98.6 per cent.