COVID-19 cases in Telangana mounted to 43,780 with 1,284 more people testing positive for coronavirus on Saturday.
The state also reported six more fatalities, taking the death toll to 409. According to the director of public health, the mortality rate is 0.93 per cent.
The state saw more people recovering from the infection than the new cases. The bulletin said that 1,902 people recovered in a single day. With this the cumulative number of recovered people rose to 30,607.
The recovery rate of Telangana is seven per cent higher than the national average, at 70 percent.
The number of active COVID-19 patients stands at 12,765, which is 29 percent of the total cases reported so far.
On Saturday, the state conducted 14,883 tests. With this, 2,52,700 tests have been conducted in total in Telangana so far. The number of tests per million population is 4,945, the bulletin said.
According to the health department, the state's cumulative sample positivity rate is at 17 percent.
The state has 39 testing laboratories including 23 in the private sector.
While the total number of government hospitals dedicated for COVID-19 was 61, the total number of beds earmarked was 17,081. Out of these, 15,169 beds are vacant.
The total ICU beds in the COVID-19 hospitals was 1,616 and the total number of ventilators in the COVID-19 hospitals was 471.
Of the new cases, 667 were reported in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) hotspot. The districts bordering the state capital also continued to see a spike in cases. Sangareddy recorded 86, Rangareddy 68 and Medchal 62.
The officials said 58 new cases were reported from Karimnagar, 46 from Nalgonda and 35 from Vikarabad.
Meanwhile, Telangana Health Minister E Rajender said steps would be taken to ensure that there was no shortage of emergency antiviral drugs used for treating COVID-19 patients.
The government would spend any amount of money to procure the medicines, he said.
During a meeting with representatives of pharma companies and dealers, the Minister directed them to see to it that emergency antiviral drugs are not black-marketed and they are available in medical shops at village level.
The Minister also said he would hold meetings either directly or through video conference with the superintendents of all major government hospitals every week as part of measures to fight the pandemic.
With IANS and PTI inputs