Hyderabad, Nov 26 (IANS): Telangana reported 862 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, pushing the state's tally to 2,66,904, health officials said.

Three more persons succumbed to the virus taking the death toll to 1,444.

The fatality rate remains at 0.54 per cent against the national average of 1.5 per cent. According to the director of public health and family welfare, 44.96 per cent of the deaths were due to COVID while the remaining 55.04 were on account of comorbidities.

During the last 24 hours the state saw 961 people recovering from the virus, taking the number of total recoveries to 2,54,676. The recovery rate improved further to 95.41 against the national average of 93.7 per cent.

The number of active cases declined to 10,784 including 8,507 individuals in home or institutional isolation.

Greater Hyderabad continues to report a daily count of less than 200 cases. The state capital logged 164 new cases during the last 24 hours. Medchal Malkajgiri district reported the second highest number at 91 followed by Khammam (63), Rangareddy (57), Bhadradri Kothagudem (53), and Karimnagar (38).

According to the daily media bulletin released by the office of the director of public health and family welfare, 41,101 tests were conducted during the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative number of tests to 52,89,908.

Of the fresh tests conducted during the last 24 hours, 38,088 samples were tested in government-run laboratories and 3,013 samples in private labs.

Eighteen government-run laboratories, 50 private laboratories and 1076 Rapid Antigen test centres are conducting the tests in the state.

Samples tested per million population rose further to 1,42,125.