Guj's COVID-19 cases up by 390 to 7,403; deaths so far 449

With as many as 390 more people testing coronavirus positive since previous night, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Gujarat reached 7,403 on Friday, a health official said.

During the same period, 24 patients succumbed to the infection, taking the death toll due to the pandemic in the state to 449, said Principal Secretary, Health, Jayanti Ravi.

Out of the total 390 new cases that were detected during the day, 269 were from Ahmedabad. Other major centres include Vadodara (25), Surat (25) and Arvalli (20).

Of the total 24 patients, who succumbed to the infection in the 24 hours, as many as 22 died in different hospitals of Ahmedabad, while one each died in Bhavnagar and Surat.

Till now, 449 people have died due to coronavirus in Gujarat.

As many as 163 patients recovered in the past 24 hours and given discharge from different hospitals, taking the total number of such patients to 1,872.

Of the total 1,05,387 tests conduct so far in Gujarat, results of 7,403 have come positive, while 97,984 have tested negative.

"As requested by Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, the Centre has decided to send AIIMS director Rajdeep Guleria and Dr Manish Sureja to Gujarat on Saturday, to help the state in reducing the mortality rate," said Ravi.

"Both these experts will reach here by a special flight from Delhi. They will visit Ahmedabad civil hospital and SVP Hospital to take stock of the situation. These experts will interact with our doctors and share their feedback with us before leaving," she added.

According to Ravi, Gujarat does not figure in the list of top five states that have registered the highest increase in positive cases between April 30 and May 6.

She added that the state's COVID-19 cases growth rate was 50.7 per cent and the case doubling rate now stands at 12 days.

Of the 449 persons who died so far due to the infection, as many as 343 have succumbed in Ahmedabad alone.

Similarly, of the total 7,403 cases registered in Gujarat till now, as many as 5,260 cases were reported in Ahmedabad alone, followed by 824 cases in Surat and 465 in Vadodara.

Gujarat's COVID-19 figures are as follows: Positive cases 7,403, new cases 390, deaths 449, discharged 1,872 active cases 5,082 and people tested so far 1,05,387.