Srinagar: Three more persons on Monday tested positive for novel coronavirus in Kashmir, taking the total number of Covid-19 patients in Jammu and Kashmir to 109.

According to officials, one of the latest patients belongs to Baramulla district while two others are from Srinagar.

“Among the total samples tested today at the virology lab of SKIMS, three have detected positive,” said Dr Farooq A Jan, Medical Superintendent of SKIMS.

“The patient from Baramulla is a 35-year-old woman whose close family member has already tested positive last week,” he said.

The other two patients from Srinagar, a male and female aged between 25 and 27 years, are from Nowshera and Chattabal localities and have recent travel history to New Delhi, Dr Jan said.

“They are at present admitted to the isolation ward of SKIMS and both of them are stable so far,” the MS said.

With these 3 fresh cases, 109 people have tested positive for the coronavirus disease and of them, 102 are active case—84 in Kashmir and 18 in Jammu division. Among all 109 cases, four have recovered and have been discharged while two others have died.

In Kashmir, the two designated virology labs for Covid-19 testing have so far tested more than 1,200 samples among the total 1,708 samples tested in J&K, including those sent for testing to AIIMS New Delhi and NIV Pune.

“We have tested around 650 samples for Covid-19 at the VRDL lab of Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar which is situated in Chest Disease Hospital since March 14,” said Dr Naveed Nazir, HoD Chest Medicine.

He said the lab tests 24 samples in one go and everyday more than 40 samples are tested depending upon the rush.

“We are overwhelmed nowadays as we receive samples from JLNM Hospital, GMC Anantnag, and District Hospital Pulwama every day,” Dr Nazir said.

Dr Jan said they have tested nearly 550 samples for Covid-19 since March 14.

“In coming days we will test more samples on daily basis,” he said.

Manzoor ul-Hassan