Amaravati, Apr 25 (IANS): Andhra Pradesh's COVID-19 tally crossed the 1000-mark on Saturday morning. With 61 new cases detected during the course of testing done between 10 a.m. on Friday and 10 a.m. on Saturday, the number of coronavirus cases in the state touched 1016, while the death toll reached 31. Srikakulam which did not have a single case till date, has reported 3 cases.

The latest surge in the state is from Krishan district with 25 cases, followed by Kurnool with 14 new cases. Anantapur district reported 5 cases, Kadapa and Nellore districts reported 4 cases each, while East Godavari, Guntur and Srikakulam districts reported 3 cases each.

This is the first time that COVID-19 cases have been detected in Srikakulam district which along with Vizianagaram district had not reported a single case till date.

The state nodal officer informed that of the 6928 samples tested during this period, 61 tested positive. With the testing stepped up over the past three days, Andhra Pradesh has been reporting a relatively higher number of COVID-19 positive cases.

On Thursday, the state had conducted 6306 tests, of which, 62 cases tested positive. Similarly, on Wednesday, 6520 tests were conducted and 81 cases were reported from the state.

With two more deaths reported in the past 24 hours, the death toll in the state stands at 31. Incidentally, the death toll in the state is the highest among southern states, even though the tally is higher in some of the other states in the region.

While neighbouring Telangana has reported 25 deaths till Friday, the death toll in Tamil Nadu is 25, and 18 in Karnataka, while Kerala has reported 4 deaths so far.

The AP government is taking note of the high death rate in the state and officials said that a clinical audit of the deaths is underway to study the issue.