In a significant achievement by Punjab in its anti-corona fight, more than 500 COVID-19 patients were discharged from different hospitals in the state on Friday following their recovery, said officials.
Most of the cured and discharged patients were pilgrims who had returned from Takht Hazur Sahib at Nanded in Maharashtra last month, a health official said.
According to data, a total 508 patients were discharged from hospitals with maximum in Gurdaspur (107), followed by Tarn Taran (81), Jalandhar (79), Amritsar (65) and Sangrur (51).
As per the data provided by state authorities, patients were also discharged from several other districts including Bathinda, Fatehgarh Sahib, Ludhiana, Mohali, SBS Nagar, Muktsar and Moga.
A Punjab health official said the patients have been discharged following the Centre's revised discharge guidelines, which says people infected with coronavirus, with very mild or mild and pre-symptomatic cases can be discharged after 10 days of symptom onset and with no fever for three days.
As per the Centre\s new guidelines, no test for COVID-19 is required before discharge in such cases.
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The state had witnessed a spike in the number of cases after 1,225, out of around 4,200 Nanded pilgrims tested positive for coronavirus.
Meanwhile, thirteen more persons contracted infection in the state, as per the state's health bulletin on Friday.
Six fresh coronavirus cases were reported in Faridkot, three in Fazilka and one each in Ludhiana, Bathinda, Rupnagar and Fatehgarh Sahib, as per the bulletin.
According to the medical bulletin, 18 Railway Protection Force personnel in Ludhiana tested positive for the infection on Friday. As they belonged to Delhi, this figure was not added in Punjab COVID-19 tally, as per the bulletin.
Similarly, the cases of 16 RPF personnel, belonging to Delhi, who had earlier tested positive in Ludhiana, have also been removed from the state's COVID tally.
With the removal of 16 RPF cases and addition of 13 new cases on Friday, the total COVID-19 in the state now stood at 1,932.
Amritsar continued to top the COVID-19 tally in the state with 297 coronavirus cases, followed by 205 in Jalandhar, 158 in Tarn Taran, 136 in Ludhiana, 122 in Gurdaspur, 103 in SBS Nagar, 102 in Mohali, 100 in Patiala, 92 in Hoshiarpur, 88 in Sangrur, 65 in Muktsar, 59 each in Moga and Rupnagar, 56 in Fatehgarh Sahib, 52 in Faridkot, 44 in Ferozepur, 41 in Fazilka, 41 in Bathinda, 32 in Mansa, 29 in Pathankot, 27 in Kapurthala and 21 in Barnala, as per bulletin.
Of the total cases, 32 patients have died, as per the bulletin.
One patient is critical and is on ventilator support, the bulletin said.
A total of 49,301 samples have been taken so far in the state of which, 44,319 samples tested negative while reports of 3,050 samples are awaited.
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