Gujarat on Monday reported 56 new COVID-19 cases, taking the total number of the affected people in the state to 572, a state Health department official said.
At the same time, the number of the people succumbing to the coronavirus infection rose to 26 with two more deaths being reported from Ahmedabad and Vadodara, a Health department official said.
Ahmedabad now accounts for the highest number of fatalities in the state at 13 followed by Surat (4).
Of the 56 new cases, 38 people were found positive for coronavirus in Ahmedabad, followed by Vadodara (6), Surat (5), Bharuch (3), Banaskantha (2), and Anand and Panchmahal one each, said Principal Secretary (Health) Jayanti Ravi.
Among the 38 people finding positive for coronavirus in Ahmedabad, two cases were reported from new areas of Odhav and Nava Naroda, while other cases are detected in the known hotspots, she said.
With this, the total number of COVID-19 patients in Ahmedabad now stands at 320, Ravi said.
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The two deceased included a 75-year-old patient who was admitted in SVP Hospital in Ahmedabad and a 27-year-old man from Vadodara, she said.
The patient from Ahmedabad was suffering frrom heart and lung ailments while the man from Vadodara had contracted dengue, Ravi said.
As on Monday, the number of the patients recovered from COVID-19 rose by ten to 54.
The fresh recoveries are reported from Patan (4), Rajkot (3), and one each from Gandhinagar, Bhavnagar and Gir Somnath.
A total of 8 of the 492 "active" COVID-19 patients are currently on ventilators whereas the condition of 484 others is stable, Ravi said.
"As per our strategy to cover districts which have reported no coronavirus case so far, we tested 660 samples from 14 such districts, out of which only two samples turned positive, both in Banaskantha district," she told reporters.
Those who tested positive in Banaskantha included a 5-year-old boy, she said, adding that family members of the deceased toddler returned from Surat on March 24 and have been placed under quarantine.
Ravi said that a total of 2,436 samples were tested for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours. The number of the samples tested so far in the state stood at 14,251, while results of 709 are awaited.
"In terms of the tests per million, Gujarat now stands third after Kerala and Maharashtra. While the average number of 15,583 samples were tested in the last 24 hours in the country, Gujarat tested 2,536 samples, which is 16 per cent (of the national average)," she said.
Meanwhile, out of the 26 deaths reported so far from Gujarat, only two are less than 40 years of age---a 14-month- old boy and a 27-year-old man.
As many as 21 of the total deceased had some underlying health conditions, she said, adding that only three deceased above the age of 60 years had no co-morbidities.
While Ahmedabad has reported 320 cases, Surat has reported 33, Rajkot 18, Vadodara 106, Gandhinagar 15, Bhavnagar 23, Kutch 4, Mehsana, Panchmahal, Banaskantha and Gir Somnath 2 each, Porbandar and Chhota Udepur 3 each, Patan 14, Bharuch 11, Anand 9, and Jamnagar, Morbi, Sabarkantha and Dahod at one each.