Itanagar, Feb 19: Arunachal Pradesh reported three fresh COVID-19 cases, pushing the tally to 16,836, a senior health department official said here on Friday.
The three new cases were reported from Namsai district and were primary contacts of a positive case detected earlier in the state, the official said.
Barring one, all the patients are asymptomatic and were detected through rapid antigen tests, State Surveillance Officer (SSO) Dr Lobsang Jampa said.
One more person recuperated from the disease on Thursday taking the total number of recoveries in the northeastern state to 16,775, the SSO said.
Arunachal Pradesh currently has five active COVID-19 cases, while 56 people have succumbed to the infection so far.
The recovery rate in the state has touched 99.63 per cent, while the positivity ratio stands at 0.02 per cent and the fatality rate at 0.33 per cent, the official said.
Altogether, 4,02,617 samples have been tested for COVID-19, including 532 on Thursday, the SSO said.
Meanwhile, State Immunization Officer (SIO) Dimong Padung said that 18,697 health and frontline workers have received vaccine shots so far including 3,113 on Thursday, of which 1,746 received the first dose of the vaccine and 1,367
the second dose.
The health department has been carrying out the inoculation drive four days a week -- Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Meanwhile, a report by the Union Health Ministry said that Arunachal Pradesh has emerged as the state with the best Covid recovery rate in the country.
"The terrain has been the main reason why we have been less affected. Even now about 700 people are getting tested on an average regularly. The rate is very good for a state with a population of 14-15 lakh," said state health secretary P Parthiban.
He said that the treatment protocol was followed even in the most remote districts to isolate cases in early stages. "It is not only the recovery rate, the death rate is also one of the lowest in the state," he said. - PTI
