With 12 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed on Saturday the nation's novel coronavirus tally has reached 978,568.

According to Ministry of Health and Population, in 2539 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests done in the past 24 hours, a total of 12 persons were found infected with SARS-CoV-2, informed the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) in its regular update.

Likewise, the virus infection was detected one in 1615 antigen tests performed in the last 24 hours.

Currently, there are 637 active cases of COVID-19 across the nation of which, 24 are admitted to various institutional isolation while 613 patients are placed in home isolation.

Of the active patients 12 are admitted to the ICU and one is under treatment with the ventilator facility.

Meanwhile, 44 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 965,980 cases of recovery, and the recovery rate is at 98.8 per cent.

The MoHP on Saturday reported no COVID-19 related fatalities to the nation's COVID-19 death toll, which has now reached 11,951.