Amravati, Oct 29 (IANS): Eighteen more people succumbed to COVID-19 in Andhra Pradesh, pushing the death toll in the state to 6,643, health officials said.

During the last 24 hours, the state reported 2,949 new infections, taking the tally to 8,14,774, the health officials said on Wednesday.

Of the fresh fatalities reported, Anantapur, Guntur, Krishna and West Godavari districts accounted for three deaths each. Two persons each succumbed in Chittoor and East Godavari while Prakasam and Visakhapatnam reported one death each.

During the last 24 hours that ended 10 a.m. on Wednesday, the state saw 3,609 people recovering from COVID. This has taken the total number of recoveries to 7,81,509.

At 95.92 per cent, Andhra Pradesh has the highest recovery rate while the mortality rate is 0.82 against the national average of 1.50 per cent

Total active cases in the state now stand at 26,622. East Godavari district has the highest number of active cases at 4,877 followed by West Godavari (3,836), Guntur (3,603) and Krishna (3,082).

According to the media bulleting released by the state command control room, 77,028 tests were conducted during the last 24 hours. These included 31,300 VRDL, Trunat and NACO tests and 45,728 Rapid Antigen tests.

With this the state has so far tested 77,73,681 samples, next only to Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. With 1,45,575 tests per million, Andhra Pradesh leads the major states. Its positivity rate stands at 10.48.