COVID-19 death toll in Bengal rises to 143; cases climb to 2,377

Eight more people died due to COVID-19 in West Bengal in the last 24 hours, taking the state's death toll to 143 on Thursday, the health department said.

While six deaths were reported from Kolkata, two were reported from the neighbouring Howrah district, the health department said in a bulletin.

A total of 87 more people tested positive for COVID-19 in different parts of the state during the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 2,377, it stated.

Sixty-six people have been discharged from hospital since Wednesday evening, improving the state's discharge rate to 32.31 per cent, the bulletin said.

As many as 5,205 samples were tested for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. The number of samples examined so far in the state has climbed to 62,837.

Earlier, the state government had attributed deaths of 72 coronavirus-afflicted people to comorbidities and had said the respiratory infection in these cases was "incidental".

The number of active COVID-19 cases in Bengal stands at 1,394.