Hyderabad, Jan 17 (IANS) Telangana's tests per million population for Covid-19 have crossed the 2-lakh mark with 33,298 more tests during the last 24 hours, health officials said on Sunday.
Tests per million population in Telangana are 2,00,475, which is higher than the national average of about 1.40 lakh.
Three months ago, Telangana had crossed the one-lakh mark for tests per million population. The state had initially come in for criticism for fewer tests but later it ramped up the numbers.
There are 19 government-run and 56 private laboratories and 1,076 Rapid Antigen test centres in the state, where about 40,000 tests are conducted daily. The numbers drop on week-ends and holidays.
According to health officials, the daily testing target for the state per World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark is 140 per million per day.
During the last 24 hours, 29,240 more tests were conducted in government labs while 4,058 samples were tested in private labs. With this, the cumulative number of tests conducted in the state rose to 74,61,687.
Meanwhile, the state reported 299 new coronavirus cases, taking the total tally to 2,91,666.
Two more persons succumbed to the virus, taking the death toll to 1,577.
According to the Director of Public Health and Family Welfare, the fatality rate remained 0.54 per cent as against the national average of 1.4 per cent.
While 44.96 per cent of the deaths occurred due to Covid-19, 55.04 per cent had comorbidities.
The state continues to see more recoveries than new cases. A total of 379 more patients recovered during the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative recoveries to 2,85,898.
The recovery rate improved to 98.02 per cent as against than the national average of 96.6 per cent.
The number of active cases in the state is 4,191, including 2,395 patients in home or institutional isolation.
Greater Hyderabad reported 57 new cases during the last 24 hours. Medchal Malkajgiri district recorded the second highest 26 cases, followed by Karimnagar (24), Rangareddy (18), Bhadradri Kothagudem, and Mancherial and Sagareddy 11 each.
New Delhi, March 6 (IANS) Oil marketing companies have spared consumers of yet another petrol and diesel price hike even though the global oil market is on the boil with crude reaching within touching distance of year-high-level of $70 a barrel.
Petrol continues to be priced at Rs 91.17 a litre and diesel Rs 81.47 a litre in the capital on Saturday. Across the country too, the petrol and diesel price remained unchanged.
This is seventh consecutive day when pump prices of auto fuels have remains unchanged.
After a spike in global oil prices seen over last two weeks with crude price jumping close to $67 a barrel, prices had fallen to around $63 a barrel but it rose again to cross $69 a barrel mark now after after the OPEC+ decision to continue with crude production cut in April.
Petrol and diesel prices have been rising continuously since February 9. In the 14 increases since then, price have gone up by Rs 4.22 per litre for petrol while diesel rate has risen by Rs 4.34 a litre in Delhi.
The increase in the previous weeks has taken petrol to cross historic high levels of Rs 100 a litre in several cities across the country.
The petrol and diesel prices have increased 26 times in 2021 with the two auto fuels increasing by Rs 7.46 and Rs 7.60 per litre, respectively so far this year.
Oil companies executives said that petrol and diesel prices may increase further in coming days as retail prices may have to be balanced in line with global developments to prevent OMCs from making loss on sale of auto fuels.
--IANS
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