Aurangabad, Jul 18 (PTI) The lockdown in force for the past nine days in Aurangabad has helped the administration detect "unidentified spreaders" of coronavirus while measures taken during the time have helped reduce the death rate, Collector Uday Choudhari said on Saturday.

He said three thousand RT-PCR and antigen tests were carried out between July 10 and 18 and over 1,000 COVID-19 cases were detected due to them.

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"This will slow down the virus spread. We have also been able to reduce the death rate in the district from 5.61 per cent on June 16 to 3.80 per cent as on today. There were 247 deaths in the first 5,000 cases, which came down to 140 deaths in the next 5,000 cases," Choudhari said.

Queried on the outbreak situation in the rural parts of the district, the collector said 118 villages have cases, with 19 having over 10 cases each.

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"There are 76 villages where there have been no new COVID-19 case in 10-12 days. Villages in Waluj, Hatnur, Gangapur and Ajanta areas are being monitored. We will carry out antigen tests in rural areas as well," Choudhari added.

Aurangabad Municipal Commissioner Astik Kumar Pandey said civic teams manage to zero in on 92,000 elderly persons who are being monitored now amid the outbreak.

"People have been supportive and not a single case under IPC section 153 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of duty) has been filed in the nine days of lockdown," Police Commissioner Chiranjeev Prasad told reporters.

The three officials were talking at a joint press meet here.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)