Amaravati, Aug 24 (IANS): The death toll due to COVID-19 in Andhra Pradesh rose to 3,368 on Monday with 86 more people succumbing to the virus during the last 24 hours.
The state also reported 8,601 new cases, taking the tally to 3,61,712.
Andhra Pradesh is the third worst affected state in the country after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu in terms of the number of COVID cases and has the fifth highest number of deaths after Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Delhi.
Officials said despite a large number of fatalities, the mortality rate of Andhra Pradesh was still low at 0.93 per cent against the national average of 1.85 per cent.
According to the media bulletin released by the State Command Control Room, 10 fatalities each were reported from Nellore and Prakasam districts and nine each from East Godavari and Guntur districts. Eight people each succumbed in Chittoor and Kadapa districts, seven each in Srikakulam and Visakhapatnam, six in Anantapur and five in Krishna district. Four deaths were reported from Vizianagaram district, two from Kurnool and one from West Godavari district.
Guntur remains the worst affected district in terms of fatalities with 340 deaths so far, followed by Kurnool (337), Chittoor (336) and East Godavari (335).
During the last 24 hours, 1,441 cases were reported from East Godavari district, pushing the district's tally to 50,686, the highest in the state. As many as 965 cases were reported from Nellore, 933 from Anantapur and 911 from Visakhapatnam.
The period also saw 8,741 people recovering from the virus. With this the cumulative recoveries rose to 2,68,828. The recovery rate in the state improved to 74.32 per cent while the national average is 75.27 per cent.
The state now has 89,516 active cases with maximum 17,540 active cases in East Godavari, followed by 8,701 in Chittoor, 7,097 in Vizianagaram, 6,948 in Prakasam, 6,545 in Kurnool Aand 6,460 in Guntur district.
During the last 24 hours ending 9 a.m. Monday, the authorities conducted 54,463 tests comprising 32,741 VRDL/Truenat/NACO tests and 21,722 rapid antigen tests. With this the state has so far tested 32,92,501 samples.
Andhra Pradesh stands fourth after Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra in the number of tests. However, it ranks first in terms of tests per million with a figure of 61,657. With a 10.99 per cent positivity rate, it fares better than states like Maharashtra (18.84 per cent), Karnataka (11.51) and Telangana (11.19).