Gujarat coronavirus case count rises to 175; death toll at 15

The number of coronavirus patients in Gujarat rose to 175 after 29 new cases were reported on Tuesday, while three more persons succumbed to the disease, taking the death count to 15, health officials said.

Ahmedabad alone reported 19 new cases, taking the tally of infections in the district to 83. Surat and Patan reported three cases each, while Bhavnagar, Anand, Sabarkantha and Rajkot recorded one case each, said Principal Secretary (Health) Jayanti Ravi.

Three COVID-19 patients - two in Surat and one in Patan - died on Tuesday, taking the total number of such cases to 15, the health officials said, adding all of them had pre- existing illnesses.

The victims in Surat -- a 52-year-old man and another aged 65 -- had contracted coronavirus through local transmission. The first patient suffered from hypertension and diabetes, while the second had hypertension, a senior health official from the Surat Municipal Corporation said.

The 47-year-old coronavirus positive man who died in Patan had recently travelled to Mumbai and was suffering from diabetes, the officials said.

The state also reported recovery of three more COVID-19 patients on Tuesday, taking the number of such cases to 25, Ravi informed reporters.

The patients discharged from hospitals were a 37- year-old man from Rajkot and one each from Vadodara and Bhavnagar, both aged 55, she said.

Under the state government's COVID-19 containment plan, around 15.5 lakh people have been brought undercluster quarantine across 48 clusters in five cities - Ahmedabad (32 clusters), Rajkot (7), Bhavnagar (5), Surat (2) and Vadodara (2), with as many as 143 health teams working round-the-clock in these areas, Ravi said.

Anand and Sabarkantha reported their first coronavirus positive cases on Tuesday, taking the number of districts infected by the disease to 17, she said.

In Gujarat, a total 3,552 samples have been tested in laboratories for coronavirus so far - 673 in the last 24 hours alone - with results of 120 of them pending, officials said.