Bengaluru, Jul 21 (IANS): With 3,649 new COVID-19 cases, Karnataka's tally breached the 70,000 mark on Tuesday, while 61 more patients succumbed to the infection, health officials said.

After the addition of fresh cases in the last 24 hours, the state's tally went up to 71,069, the officials added.

As many as 61 persons with COVID-19 infection died across the state, taking the toll to 1,464.

With 1,714 infections, Bengaluru continues to report the highest number of cases, raising its tally to 34,943 cases, out of which 26,746 are active.

The tech city accounts for 61 per cent of all the active cases in the state.

Among the new cases, excluding the city, Ballari accounts for 193 infections, followed by Dakshina Kannada (149), Mysuru (135), Yadgir (117), Uttara Kannada (109) and Hassan (107) among others.

Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) has been identified to be the most common medical condition among the deaths, with fever, cough and breathlessness being some chief symptoms.

In a positive development, 1,664 patients have been discharged from various hospitals in the state, raising the total number of discharges to 25,459.

Of the total 71,069 cases, 44,140 are active and 583 of them are in the ICU.

Commenting on the number of Covid tests being conducted in the state, Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar said 10.64 lakh tests have been conducted until now.

"Karnataka conducted 43,904 tests in a single day on Tuesday. So far we conducted 10.64 lakh tests across 88 labs in the state," said Sudhakar.

Similarly, to ramp up testing in containment zones, he said the government has procured 2 lakh rapid antigen test kits and supplied them to the districts.

The highest number of kits, 1.15 lakh, have been supplied to Bengaluru Urban district.

"Fifty thousand antigen tests will be conducted in Bengaluru rural and districts. Our target is to conduct 35,000 antigen tests per day," he added.