Chennai, June 5 (IANS): Tamil Nadu on Friday reported 1,438 cases of fresh coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, the state Health Department said.

The state also reported 12 deaths, taking the death toll to 232.

On the positive side, a total of 861 Covid-19 patients were discharged from various hospitals, taking the total number of cured persons to 15,762 out of the total infected number of 28,694.

The number of active cases including in the isolation centres is at 12,697.

In a statement issued here, the Health Department said 1,438 persons tested positive, taking the total tally to 28,694 persons.

Chennai saw the highest number of infections at 1,116 taking the total tally to 19,826 and is followed by Chengalpattu (1,624), Tiruvallur (1,191), Cuddalore (474) and Kancheepuram (483).

On Friday 15,692 samples were tested taking the total to 5.60 lakh. Testing of 684 samples are under process.

The number of infected children in the age group 0-12 went up to 1,571.

With state capital Chennai continuing to see uptrend in new infections, reporting over 1,000 coronavirus infections for the past couple of days, including 1,116 on Friday, Chief Minister K. Palaniswami has nominated five ministers to oversee the coordination and coronavirus relief works in the city's 15 zones.

The five are Fisheries Minister D.Jayakumar, Higher Education Minister, K.P. Anbalagan, Food and Civil Supplies Minister R.Kamaraj, Revenue and Disaster Management Minister R.B. Udhyakumar, and Transport Minister K.R.Vijayabhaskar.