Patna : The COVID-19 situation continued to be grim in Bihar on Saturday as improvements in rates of infection and recovery notwithstanding, over 100 fatalities were reported and the death toll surged past the 4,500-mark.
According to the health department, 107 more patients succumbed to the dreaded virus and the toll stands at 4,549. The state logged 4,002 fresh cases, pushing the tally to 6.89 lakh.
Bihar now has 40,691 active cases, a sharp drop since a few weeks ago when it was in excess of one lakh, while 6.44 lakh people have recovered from the virus so far.
Recovery rate has also improved to 93.44 per cent, far above the national average, the department said.
The state has achieved some success in bringing down the number of people getting infected by adopting restrictive measures like the complete lockdown, which came into force on May 5 and will remain effective till Tuesday, unless extended by the government.
The Nitish Kumar government has also taken a grim view of the reports of black fungus infections in COVID survivors, which have become endemic in states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh and a few instances of which have also come up in Bihar.
On Saturday, the state government notified black fungus under the Epidemic Diseases Act with instructions to civil surgeons of all the 40 districts that they submit daily reports of mucormycosis infections in their respective areas of jurisdiction.
On the vaccination front, 1.24 lakh people took the jabs during the day, raising the total number of beneficiaries to 97.97 lakh. These include 12.20 lakh people in the age group of 18-44 years.
State Health Minister Mangal Pandey tweeted a newspaper report that showed that Bihar stood second only to Rajasthan in terms of the number of people in 18-44 years age group who have been vaccinated.
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