New 55 positive Covid-19 cases were reported in Gujarat on Thursday morning after the State embarked on an intensive testing drive across the hotspot clusters. As a result, the total number of positive cases have jumped to 241 with 17 fatalities.

The State health authorities have conducted over 1,788 tests in the past 24 hours.

Jayanti Ravi, Principal Secretary - Health, Gujarat government informed that average over 1,000 tests are being conducted - primarily across the identified hotspot clusters in the cities of Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Bhavnagar.

Most of the positive cases are said to have direct or indirect connection with the Nizamuddin Markaz event attendees.

Of the new cases reported on Thursday morning, Ahmedabad alone has reported 50 cases - nearly all from the hotspot clusters in the walled-city area. Surat added two more positive cases, while Dahod, Anand and Chhota Udepur districts reported one new case each.

Commenting on the surveillance drive, Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra said, “The whole of walled city has been declared as buffer zone. We have installed CORONA checkposts to screen every individuals coming in or going out of the walled city areas. The entire area has been sealed under cluster containment strategy.”

The civic body has intensified surveillance and testing in the hotspot clusters. Nehra said, “We are chasing the virus. And what we have got today is the result of our extensive work conducted in past three days. Our effort is that all the cases get detected. The undetected cases are more dangerous and prone to fatalities. Had we not done this drive, these positive cases would have been roaming around in the city and may have infected many others.” He also said that adding that the city may see further jump in positive cases as many more tests are being conducted.

Ravi said, "There is no need to panic at present. We are enhancing surveillance and testing in the hotspot areas and as a result there may be some addition of new cases, which is a good thing as it will help us take better care of the people. We just request people to provide their support whenever a health department team visits them for testing."

Registered cases

As many as 15 localities in four cities, where virus cluster was noticed, were sealed putting nearly 1.5 lakh population under a 'virtual' quarantine.

The positive cases ratio is five per cent of the total tests.

Overall, Ahmedabad district has the most positive cases at 133 and six deaths followed by Surat (25 cases, 4 deaths), Vadodara (18 cases, 2 deaths), Bhavnagar (18 cases, 2 deaths), Gandhinagar (13 cases), Rajkot (11 cases), Patan (5 cases, one death), Porbandar (3 cases), Kutch (2), Mehsana (2), Gir Somnath (2), Chhota Udepur (2 cases), Anand (2 cases), Panchmahal (1 case, one death), Jamnagar (1 case) Morbi (1) Sabarkantha (1) and Dahod (1).

Of the 241 cases, 26 patients have been discharged, 153 stable, two are on ventilator and 43 are under surveillance quarantine, as on Thursday morning.

The total number of people under quarantine is 12,352, of which 11,015 are under home quarantine, 1,170 under government quarantine and 167 in private facilities.

So far, total 5,760 tests have been conducted, of which 5,417 are negative and results for 102 are awaited as on Thursday morning.

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