The city, which recorded 50 new COVID-19 cases sinceWednesday evening, accounts for a lion's share of the totalinfections in the state - 133 out of 241 - they said.
Out of the 17 persons who have lost their lives tocoronavirus in Gujarat till date, 6 were from Ahmedabad,including a 48-year-old patient who died on Thursday morningat SVP Hospital here.
The sudden spike in the number of new cases was due toan intensive surveillance being carried out in areas whichhave been declared as 'hotspots' in Ahmedabad, said principalsecretary, health, Jayanti Ravi.
According to her, the COVID-19 tally will rise in thedays to come as more cases related to the religious gatheringin Nizamuddin, Delhi, last month are likely to emerge duringthe surveillance and the ongoing testing in the walled cityarea, which has a sizable minority community population.
Till now, 11 cases related to the Nizamuddin meet, akey source of the COVID-19 spread in the country, had beenreported in Gujarat, all in Ahmedabad, officials had saidearlier.
Following the discovery of several cases ofcoronavirus from specific pockets, the Ahmedabad MunicipalCorporation has launched a surveillance and sample collectiondrive since the last few days in areas already under 'clusterquarantine', said civic commissioner Vijay Nehra.
"Our aim is to maximise screening as well as testingto identify positive cases. As a result of this aggressivedrive, we were able to collect 761 samples on April 7 and 886samples on April 8, much higher than just 20-25 we used tocollect a week back.
"In a way, we are chasing the virus," Nehra toldreporters.
"As a result of this aggressive drive, we were ableto detect 50 new cases in one day. If these cases were notdetected, the infection could have spread in thousands.
"The number of cases will increase in the days to comeas over 1,000 samples are still pending for examination at thecivil hospital's laboratory," he added.
Since many cases were reported from the walled cityarea, a mega drive with the help of 1,900 health workers waslaunched on Thursday to screen the entire population in thelocality, said Nehra. PJT PDRSY RSY