Kolkata, Oct 1 (UNI) The COVID-19 toll in Bengal rose to 5,017 with the death of 59

persons on Thursday, while the tally touched 2,60,324 with 3,275 new confirmed

cases.

According to the latest State Government Health bulletin, the active cases accounted

for 26,552, while the number of discharged cases stood at 2,28,755.

The percentage of discharged rose to 87.87 per cent.

The bulletin said the total number of samples tested stood at 32,71,316 with 43,854

tested in the past 24 hours.

While the city recorded the highest number of 1721 deaths so far, surrounding districts

of North 24 Parganas and Howrah came second and third respectively with 1121 and 570

fatalities.

South 24 Parganas accounted for 323 deaths, the toll in Hooghly stood at 223,

Darjeeling 110, Paschim and Purba Midnapore 137 and 130 respectively, Malda 56,

Murshidabad 63, Nadia 97, Paschim Bardhaman 67, Purba Bardhaman 53,

Jalpaiguri 59, Uttar Dinajpur 36, Dakshin Dinajpur 34, Birbhum 31, Alipurduar 53,

Kalimpong 7, Cooch Behar 39, Purulia 18, Jhargram 9 and Bankura 57.

Meanwhile, with one more death, the pandemic has taken a toll on about 50 physicians

across West Bengal since the Coronavirus struck in the state late last March, a source

said today.

The latest victim was an orthopaedic surgeon Debashish Samanta, a resident of

Contai in East Medinipur, according to a medical forum, which claimed that so far 50

medicos have died of pandemic in Bengal so far.

Dr Debashsish Samanta, the former government medic quit his job to start his private

practice also fought an unsuccessful Lok Sabha poll in 2019, fell sick at the end of August

and was diagnosed with coronavirus.

Later he was shifted to a private hospital in the city and had been on a ventilator support,

died early today.

Before his another medic Sandip Dey, who was posed at Sonamukhi grameen hospital in

Banuka died of covid last Sunday.

UNI BM-SJC-PC