India's continuing battle with COVID-19 and rising case counts

India has been overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of new coronavirus cases daily, bringing pain, fear and agony to many lives as lockdowns have been put in place in New Delhi and other cities.

India's Health Ministry reported 295,041 new cases on Wednesday and 2,023 deaths, taking total fatalities to 182,553. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the country has recorded 15.6 million cases, the second highest in the world behind the United States.

Newly reported cases have exceeded 200,000 each day for a week.

"This time, infection is spreading so fast that people are not getting time to get medicines. Many people are dying before we can get a test report," said Dr. S.K. Pandey of Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow, capital of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Below is a selection of photos from Wednesday, showing the many ways in which the coronavirus is currently challenging the country, its hospitals and its people.

Oxygen supplies run low

Hospitals in New Delhi, the capital, and elsewhere have warned that their supplies of medical oxygen given to severely ill COVID-19 patients are running low.

In the image below, a worker at a gas-supplier facility in Bangalore, India, is seen on Wednesday checking oxygen cylinders before they are sent to hospitals.

(Aijaz Rahi/The Associated Press)

An oxygen cylinder is loaded onto an ambulance, at the same supply facility in Bangalore.

(Aijaz Rahi/The Associated Press)

More than 20 COVID-19 patients on ventilators died at a hospital in Nashik, India, on Wednesday, when their oxygen supply was interrupted by a leak in a supply line.

(The Associated Press)

Rising cases

A worker arranges beds in a stadium in Kolkata, India, that has been converted into a quarantine centre for coronavirus patients with mild symptoms. 

(Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images)

Two men carry a bed frame and mattress to the same Kolkata stadium, where a quarantine centre has been set up.

(Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images)

Relatives wearing personal protective equipment embrace at the New Delhi funeral of a man who died from COVID-19.

(Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

Masks, barricades and sanitizers

Mask-wearing shoppers are shown gathered at a crowded market in Mumbai on Wednesday.

(Niharika Kulkarni/Reuters)

A mask-wearing man passes by a Mumbai mural depicting a health-care worker warding off the coronavirus.

(Punit Paranjpe/AFP/Getty Images)

People look at face masks being offered for sale at a roadside stall in Siliguri, India.

(Diptendu Dutta/AFP/Getty Images)

Two municipal workers barricade a contaminated zone in Allahabad, India, as a preventive measure against the spread of the coronavirus.

(Sanjay Kanojia/AFP/Getty Images)

A fire brigade member sprays sanitizer on the street in Noida, a suburb of New Delhi.

(Altaf Qadri/The Associated Press)