COVID-19: AP adds 38 new cases; 15 discharged; active cases now stand at 523
By Newsmeter Network Published on 17 April 2020 7:11 AM GMT
Vijayawada: With 38 new positive cases added in the past 24 hours, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the State stood at 572 on Friday morning.
However, in a major relief, 15 COVID-19 patients who recovered have been discharged. 13 of them are from Kadapa district and two of them hail from Anantapuramu district.
The number of active cases now stand at 523 after 35 patients were discharged and another 14 breathed their last.
Of the total 38 new COVID-19 cases in the State, 13 cases were added in Kurnool, six cases were detected in Nellore, 5 cases each were added in Anantapur and Chittoor districts, four cases were reported in Guntur and Krishna districts and Kadapa district reported one case.
With 126 cases, Guntur and Kurnool districts top the State chart. While Nellore has 64 cases, Krishna has 52 cases, Prakasam 42, Kadapa 37, West Godavari 34, Chittoor 28, Anantapur 26, Visakhapatnam 20 and East Godavari district has 17 cases.
The two north coastal Andhra districts of Srikakulam and Vizianagaram continue to maintain a clean slate with zero cases of the pandemic.
Special chief secretary (health), K.S. Jawahar Reddy said that they have started āpool testingā samples of suspected coronavirus patients. The pool testing process involves testing multiple swab samples in a single test.
If the combined sample tests positive for COVID-19, the samples are then tested individually to determine who has the virus. If the combined sample tests negative, there would be no need to test individually. Five samples per testing kit are used so that around 25 kits are being used for testing 100 samples, he added.
