Fourteen COVID-19 patients died on Thursday in Maharashtra, taking the total to 283.

Highlights 778 new coronavirus cases on Thursday in Maharashtra

Over 200 positive cases, 13 deaths in Mumbai's Dharavi

Centre declared Mumbai one of the hotspots of COVID-19

Maharashtra registered 778 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, taking the state's COVID-19 tally to 6,427, health officials said. Fourteen COVID-19 patients died on Thursday, taking the total to 283.

With 522 more people testing positive, Mumbai alone has 4,025 coronavirus cases now. The increase was the single-biggest jump for the city since the beginning of the pandemic. The number of deaths in the city rose by six to 167, officials said.

In Mumbai's Dharavi, Asia's biggest slum that houses over 8 lakh people, the number of cases rose to 214 and number of deaths to 13.

The centre has declared Mumbai as one of the hotspots of COVID-19 in the country and various measures have been taken by the authorities to contain the spread of the virus in its densely populated slums.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has created as many as 813 containment zones, where at least one or more positive or suspected case of COVID-19 were found till April 21. People in these zones are not allowed to go out to stop the spread of the pandemic.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday said that his government's focus was to reduce the mortality rate of COVID-19 patients and increase the period during which the number of positive cases double.

He made the remarks during his video-conference interaction with the members of two central teams that toured Mumbai and Pune cities, the two coronavirus hotspots in the state.

The teams took a review of the medical machinery, implementation of the lockdown measures and social distancing, safety of health workers and situation of labourers in shelter camps, supply of essential goods, among other things.

At present, the period of doubling of patients in the state is seven days, which has to be increased to more than 10 days, Mr Thackeray told the teams.

He asked the state administration to take into consideration all the suggestions made by the central teams.

A statement from the Chief Minister's Office said that 78.9 per cent of the patients, who died due to the infection, had other ailments and were in the age group of 51 to 60 years.

So far, 840 COVID-19 patients have been discharged in the state after recovery, health officials said.

(With inputs from agencies)