Amaravati, Sep 1 (IANS): Covid-19 cases in Andhra Pradesh surged by over 10,000 cases for the sixth consecutive day on Monday while the virus claimed 85 more lives.

The state reported 10,004 cases, taking the tally to 4,34,771 while the death toll climbed to 3,969.

Andhra Pradesh has already overtaken Tamil Nadu as the second worst-affected state in terms of number of Covid cases. Maharashtra continued to top the list with over 7 lakh cases.

Andhra Pradesh also has the fifth-highest death toll in the country. Officials, however, said despite a large number of fatalities, the mortality rate was still low at 0.92 per cent against the national average of 1.81 per cent.

According to a media bulletin released by the State Command Control Room, a maximum of 12 fatalities were reported from Nellore district, nine each from Chittoor and Prakasam district and eight from Kadapa district.

Seven deaths each were registered in Anantapur, West Godavari, and East Godavari districts, six each in Kurnool and Visakhapatnam, four in Srikakulam, two in Krishna and one in Vizianagaram.

Chittoor has the highest death toll at 415, followed by East Godavari (391), Kurnool (378) and Guntur (376).

During the last 24 hours, 1,383 cases were reported from East Godavari district, pushing the district's tally to 59,403, the highest in the state. As many as 1,086 cases were reported from Nellore and 1,023 from Srikakulam.

The 24-hour period also saw 8,772 people recovering from the virus. With this, the cumulative recoveries rose to 3,30,526.

The number of active cases in the state crossed one lakh. East Godavari has a maximum 18,769 active cases, followed by 10,150 in Prakasam, 8,866 in Chittoor, 7,882 in Vizianagaram and 7,586 in Guntur.

During the last 24 hours, the authorities conducted 56,490 tests comprising 30,176 VRDL/Truenat/NACO tests and 26,314 rapid antigen tests. With this, the state has so far tested 37,22,912 samples.