30% of coronavirus cases linked to Tablighi event: Govt

New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry on Saturday said about 30% of the confirmed coronavirus cases from the country have been traced to Tablighi Jamaat religious congregation held in New Delhi last month. In Delhi, 63% of the reported cases are linked to the same gathering.

Nearly 40,000 people related to Delhi's Nizamuddin event have already been quarantined.

The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 488 and the number of cases climbed to 14,792 in the country on Saturday, registering an increase of 36 deaths and 957 cases since Friday evening, according to the Union Health Ministry.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 12,289 while 2,014 people have been cured and discharged, and one had migrated, it said.

The total number of cases includes 76 foreign nationals.

Thirty-six deaths have been reported since Friday evening -- 12 from Madhya Pradesh, 10 from Gujarat, seven from Maharashtra, four from Delhi and one each from Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir.

The mortality rate due to COVID-19 is 3.3%.

Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary Health Ministry, said earlier on Saturday that 4,291 coronavirus cases are epidemiologically linked to the Nizamuddin Markaz case. "These cases are spread across 23 states and Union Territories, which include most of the high degree burden cases – in Tamil Nadu, it is 84 per cent of the total confirmed cases, 63% in Delhi, 91% in Assam, 61% in Uttar Pradesh and 83% in Andaman & Nicobar.

"If lockdown and social distancing norms are not followed, then the entire country would have to face the consequences", said Agarwal.

He also added that 47 districts in 23 states have shown positive trends in the fight against coronavirus outbreak in the country. "One district each in Puducherry and Karnataka has not reported a positive coronavirus yet along with 22 new districts, split across various states, have also not reported new cases in the last 14 days", added Agarwal.

The health ministry official also added that the RT-PCR test is standard frontline test for COVID-19 diagnosis and the rapid antibody test to be used for surveillance in hotspots

Of the 488 deaths in the country, Maharashtra tops the list with 201 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 69, Gujarat at 48 and Delhi at 42 and Telangana at 18.

Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have reported 15 deaths each while Uttar Pradesh has reported 14 fatalities.

Punjab and Karnataka have reported 13 deaths each.

Rajasthan has registered 11 deaths while West Bengal has reported 10 fatalities.

Five people have lost their lives in Jammu and Kashmir while Kerala and Haryana have recorded three deaths each. Jharkhand and Bihar have reported two deaths each.

Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Assam reported one fatality each, according to the health ministry data.

According to the ministry's data updated in the evening, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 3,323 followed by Delhi at 1,707, Madhya Pradesh at 1,355 and Tamil Nadu at 1,323.

COVID-19 cases have gone up to 1,272 in Gujarat, 1,229 in Rajasthan and 969 in Uttar Pradesh.

Telangana has 791 cases, followed by Andhra Pradesh at 603 and Kerala at 396.

The number of novel coronavirus cases has risen to 371 in Karanataka, 328 in Jammu and Kashmir, 287 in West Bengal, 225 in Haryana and 202 in Punjab.

Bihar has reported 85 infection cases, while Odisha has 60 coronavirus cases.

Forty-two people were infected with the virus in Uttarakhand, while Himachal Pradesh has 38 cases. Chhattisgarh has 36 cases and Assam has registered 35 cases each.

Jharkhand has 33 cases, Chandigarh has 21 cases and Ladakh has 18, while 12 cases have been reported from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Meghalaya has reported 11 cases while Goa and Puducherry have reported seven COVID-19 infections each. Manipur and Tripura have two cases each, while Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have reported a case each.

"State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation," the ministry said on its website. The website also mentions that the patient from Nagaland has been shifted to Assam.

(With PTI inputs)