VIJAYAWADA: A 23-year-old pregnant woman succumbed to coronavirus at the NRI Hospital in Mangalagiri, Guntur district on Tuesday night. She was one of the two casualties in the district in the last 24 hours and the first pregnant woman to die of the virus in the State. Till date, the virus has claimed eight lives in Guntur district and 24 across the State.

Nakirekal tahsildar T Prasanthi said the 23-year-old was five months into her pregnancy. She was an agricultural worker from Purushottapatnam in Chilakaluripeta. She is survived by her husband and a two-year-old son. She had been staying with her parents for the last four months at Chagallu village in Nakirekal mandal and used to visit Narasaraopet Government Hospital for medical check-ups. It was there that doctors detected coronavirus symptoms in her and sent her samples for testing. She tested positive on April 19 and was shifted to the NRI hospital.

Officials identified her 11 primary and 18 secondary contacts and shifted the former to quarantine centres. Sources said the woman had no travel history nor contact with any Delhi returnee or foreign returnee. On Wednesday morning, the Covid-19 tally in Andhra Pradesh reached 813 with 56 new cases reported from across the state in the last 24 hours. According to the government’s media bulletin, a record 5,757 samples were tested between Tuesday 9 am and Wednesday 9 am — making Andhra top in terms of testing in the country.

Of the 56 new cases, Kurnool and Guntur districts accounted for 19 each, Chittoor recorded six, Kadapa five, Prakasam four and Krishna district three. With 19 new cases, Kurnool has now reported 203 cases with 194 of them being active. Guntur has 146 active cases. The number of recoveries in the state touched 139, with 43 people discharged from hospitals between Tuesday morning and Wednesday evening.

Nani rules out community transmission in State

Meanwhile, Health Minister Alla Nani along with his colleagues Sucharitha and Mopidevi Venkataramana held a review meeting on the prevailing situation in the district. Later speaking to the press, Nani ruled out community transmission in the State but in the same breath, admitted that there are 52 coronavirus cases the source of which is yet to be determined. “We are trying to get to the root of them all,” he assured.

Asserting that the situation in AP is much better than in other States, he said special attention was being paid to Guntur district which has 146 active cases, next only to Kurnool which has 194 active cases. Explaining the steps being taken by the government, he said fever hospitals will be opened in red zones and added that they could start functioning in 2-3 days. “We have overcome the shortage of medical equipment and we will get adequate number of ventilators too.

We have enough stock of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin,” he said. He said that surveys were being conducted by teams headed by a medical officer wherever positive cases were detected. The number of special officers in those areas would be increased. He said the use of rapid testing kits has been stopped temporarily. “However, we have other equipment which can test 100 samples an hour,” he said.