Hyderabad, Aug 25 (IANS): Telangana has reported 2,579 new Covid-19 cases, the highest single-day spike since the outbreak of the pandemic in March, health officials said on Tuesday.

With this the state's tally mounted to 1,08,670, while nine deaths pushed the overall toll to 770.

The state also set the record by conducting 52,933 tests. This is the highest number of tests to be conducted in a 24-hour period. The total number of tests done so far is over 10 lakh.

Under fire from various quarters for its poor testing, the Telangana government ramped up the number of daily tests since last week.

The highest number of tests reported so far was 40,666 on Sunday. The authorities reported 36,282 tests on Monday.

The state has added eight more private laboratories conducting the tests. With this a total of 16 government and 31 private laboratories are conducting RT-PCR/CBNAAT/TRUENAT types of tests while there are 1,076 rapid antigen tests centres.

During the last three days the laboratories conducted 1,29,881 tests. With this the total number of tests conducted so far rose to 10,21,054. However, the authorities have not been providing breakup of the type of tests conducted.

The samples tested per million population mounted to 27,502 against a daily testing target of 5,600 per day as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 140 per million per day. The results of 763 samples were awaited.

Health officials said the case fatality rate in the state stood at 0.70 per cent against the national average of 1.85 per cent. Out of the total fatalities, 53.87 per cent had comorbidities.

According to Public Health and Family Welfare department, the number of cases further declined in Greater Hyderabad but continued to spike in the districts.

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) reported 295 new cases against 373 the previous day. Medchal Malkajgiri and Rangareddy district abutting GHMC reported 106 and 186 new cases respectively. Sangareddy, another district bordering the state capital, saw 30 new cases.

Outside GHMC and surrounding districts, Khammam was the worst affected district with 161 new cases followed by Warangal Urban with 143 cases, Nizamabad 142 , Nalgonda 129, Karimnagar 116, Jagtiyal 98, Siddipet 92, Peddapalli 85, Bhadradri Kothagudem 83 and Mahabubabad 81.

1,752 people were recovered in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 84,163. The state's recovery rate at 77.44 per cent is better than the national average of 75.27 per cent.

The number of active cases in the state stands at 23,737 including 17,226 under home isolation.

Age wise Covid positive details show that 65.3 per cent of those tested positive were in the age group of 21-50 years. Terming this as a susceptible age group, authorities have urged them not to go out unless absolutely necessary. They were advised to strictly exercise precautions like wearing face masks and maintain physical distancing.

Among Covid positive cases, 24.71 per cent are above 51 years of age. About 10 per cent were aged below 20 years.

Officials said 64.41 per cent of those tested positive were male while the remaining 35.59 per cent were female.

According to the officials, out of 20,396 beds in government-run hospitals, 18,016 beds are vacant.

A total of 170 private hospitals have been treating Covid in the state. These hospitals have 9,065 beds out of which 4,934 are still vacant.