COVID-19 cases have surged once again in Telangana with 33 people testing positive for the coronavirus on Sunday, taking the state's tally to 1,196.
Hyderabad continues to remain the only district registering new cases. Officials said out of the 33 new cases, 26 were reported from the jurisidiction of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). Seven migrants also tested positive for COVID-19. With this, the number of migrants affected in the state rose to 11.
Migrants returning to Telangana from other states were testing positive. Of the seven cases, four belonged to Yadadri Bhuvangiri district. However, these cases were included in the 'migrants' category. Yadadri continues to figure in the list of three districts which have not recorded a single positive case so far.
Meanwhile, the state-run Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad is all set to carry out plasma therapy trials for coronavirus patients.
The plasma trials will be conducted from Monday as per the protocol of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), health officials said.
"This is a clinical trial. There is no proven researchon plasma therapy. So, this is a research study under the guidance of ICMR and as part of it blood is obtained from those recovered from COVID-19," a doctor at the hospital said.
"Depending on their (recovered patients) age group and hemoglobin percent, and if they have any other complications, we will see all those and if they are fit then we will extract 400 ml of blood from them," he said.
The therapy will be done for patients based on certain conditions such as lung capacity, he added. The therapy aims at transfusing plasma (component of blood) containing antibodies donated by a recovered COVID-19 patient to the serious coronavirus patients harbouring an active infection.
Meanwhile, the death toll remained unchanged at 30 as no death was reported on Sunday. The state also did not record any recovery/discharge on Sunday. So far, 751 people have been discharged from hospitals after completing the treatment.
According to the Director of Public Health and Family Welfare, the number of active cases stands at 415.
Meanwhile, the number of districts which reported no new cases for the past 14 days rose to 24. The state has requested the Centre to upgrade 14 districts from orange zone to green zone and three districts from red zone to orange zone.
This will leave the state with just three red zone districts - Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy and Malkajgiri Medchal.
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With IANS and PTI inputs