Eight more positive patients succumbed to COVID19 infections in Assam on Thursday, taking the state’s death toll to 221 while the state has registered 1,735 new positive cases in the last 24 hours.

Confirming the news, Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in a tweet on Thursday said:  “Very sad & anguished to inform that eight more COVID19 positive patients have succumbed to the disease.”

The COVID19 victims are from Kamrup Rural, Barpeta, Dibrugarh, Karimganj, Karbi Anglong, and Dhubri districts.

The victims have been identified as 70-year-old Mira Begum and 48-year-old Saifuddin Ahmed from Kamrup Rural district; 49-year-old Muktar Hussain from Barpeta district; 48-year-old Chakradhar Gogoi and 60-year-old Chow Tharsa Nangpung from Dibrugarh district.

The other victims include 60-year-old Shukla Dutta from Karimganj; 45-year-old Dorsing Terang from Karbi Anglong district and 46-year-old Dipak Kr Raha (46) from Dhubri district.

“My condolences to all the families. We stand by you in this hour of grief,” the health minister added.

Meanwhile, Assam has registered 1,735 new positive cases, taking the state’s overall tally to 86,052.

Informing about the detection of the new cases, health minister Sarma said the positive cases were confirmed out of 34,376 tests.

“Alert ~ 1735 #COVID cases detected today out of 34376 tests done in last 24 hours,” Sarma tweeted.

The state’s positivity rate stands at 5.04%, Sarma added.

The health minister informed that of the positive cases, Kamrup Metro reported 389 cases, Cachar reported 175 cases, Dibrugarh reported 116 cases and 112 cases have been detected in Barpeta.

A total of 60,348 patients have recovered in the state so far.

Assam currently has 25,480 active COVID19 cases, the health minister informed.