Gujarat reports 241 COVID-19 cases, 17 deaths

Ahmedabad, Apr 9 () The total number of coronaviruscases in Gujarat jumped to 241 on Thursday with 55 newpatients being found in the state, an official said.

The death toll also went up to 17 with one more personsuccumbing to the viral disease.

Out of the 55 new cases, 50 were reported fromAhmedabad, two from Surat and one case each from Dahod, Anandand Chhotaudepur district.

The sudden spike in the number of new cases,particularly in Ahmedabad, was due to the intensivesurveillance being carried out in areas declared as 'hotspots'here and other major cities of Gujarat, principal secretary(health) Jayanti Ravi said.

She said numbers are likely to rise in days to come asmore cases related to the religious congregation of TablighiJamaat at Nizamuddin in Delhi may emerge in the ongoingintensive surveillance and testing exercise being carried outin the walled city area and other hotspots in Ahmedabad.

"We had a fair idea from the beginning that caseswould rise due to the Tablighi event related cases which weredetected earlier. We knew that once we start intensivesurveillance and testing in the Nizamuddin incident relatedhotspots, more cases would emerge," Ravi told reporters inGandhinagar.

"We want more cases to be detected, so that we caneliminate the infection completely," she said.

Till now, 11 cases related to the Nizamuddin eventhave been reported from Gujarat, all in Ahmedabad.

The major hotspots in Ahmedabad where maximum numberof cases have been found on Thursday are Danilimada, Astodiaand Ghodasar areas.

Surat city has two main hotspots- Rander and AdajanPatiya.

Out of the 241 cases reported so far, the highest133 have been reported in Ahmedabad, followed by Surat (25),Vadodara (18), Bhavnagar (18), Gandhinagar (13), Rajkot (11),Patan- five, Porbandar-three, two each in Kutch, Mehsana, GirSomnath, Chhotaudepur and Anand.

One case each has been recorded in Panchmahal,Jamnagar, Morbi, Sabarkantha and Dahod.

A 48-year-old coronavirus patient died in Ahmedabadon Wednesday night, taking the toll in Gujarat to 17, theofficial said.

The man, who died at SVP Hospital here, was alsosuffering from co-morbid conditions, including high bloodpressure, she said.