Andhra Pradesh added 10 COVID-19 cases in the course of the day on Tuesday, taking the state's tally to 483 by 9 pm. The state had witnessed one of its highest jumps in COVID-19 cases when 37 persons tested positive on Tuesday morning.
Among them, the oldest person to test positive for coronavirus was an 80-year old woman from Guntur while the youngest were two three-year old girls, one from Kurnool and another from East Godavari district.
With cases on the rise, the state government has started a COVID-19 special recruitment drive and issued a notification inviting applications for contractual posting as specialists and general duty medical officers in government general hospitals and district hospitals.
Giving out the latest updates, the state nodal officer reported that five cases from Guntur district, three cases from Anantapur and two cases from Kadapa district were detected from the test results that returned between 9 am and 5 pm on Tuesday.
With 16 persons discharged so far, the number of persons currently in hospital for treatment stands at 459. The death toll in AP due to COVID-19 is 11 -- three persons in Krishna district, two persons in Anantapur, two persons in Guntur and one person each in Kurnool and Nellore districts have succumbed to the disease so far.
Guntur, with 112 cases, has witnessed the highest number of coronavirus cases followed by Kurnool (90) and Nellore (56).
The government data revealed that among the 483 cases, 13 foreign returnees contracted coronavirus and 12 of their contacts got afflicted through human-to-human transmission. Another 33 cases were due to "other reasons."
The remaining cases were either Tablighi Jamaat congregation attendees or their contacts.
According to the state government numbers, in all 10,505 blood samples were tested till date and 10,022 of them turned negative.
In a bid to reduce the possibilities of spreading COVID-19, the state government has also banned NGOs and other private institutions from organising blood donation camps.
The state nodal officer, however, clarified that persons requiring regular blood transfusion and haemophiliacs can approach the police with documentation provided by the hospital authorities.
The data also said 4,799 doctors and 16,481 paramedical and nursing staff were rendering COVID-related services in government hospitals in the 13 districts, with the highest 2,771 doctors and 9,624 paramedical and nursing staff in Visakhapatnam district alone.
With IANS and PTI inputs
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