HYDERABAD: Telangana continued to witness a massive increase in COVID-19 cases on Monday with seven deaths and 872 new cases being reported, taking the tally of infections in the state to 8,674.

Out of the 872 fresh cases, 713 were reported from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), followed by Ranga Reddy district confirming 107 cases.

A state government bulletin said 4,005 people have been discharged so far, while 4,452 were under treatment. With seven fresh deaths, the toll in the state rose to 217.

On Monday, 3,189 samples were tested taking the cumulative to 60,243. The state government has recently announced that around 50,000 samples would be tested in Hyderabad and its neighbouring districts as part of measures to check the spread of the virus, according to the health bulletin.

Against the backdrop of sharp rise in cases, state Health Minister E Rajender, who held a meeting with medical and health officials, directed the hospital at Gachibowli in the city to become operational within a week. The facility at Gachibowli was asports centre, which has been transformed into a COVID-19 designated hospital by the state government.

He announced that the state government would step up its testing capacity in public sector labs to 6,600 tests per day. The present per day capacity of 2,290 tests would be increased by 4,310.

Rajender said arrangements should be made for testing by identifying COVID-19 symptoms at the level of Primary Health Centre (PHC) itself, an official release said.

He asked the private hospitals to be responsible in providing treatment to coronavirus patients and the diagnostic centres to conduct tests as per government norms.

Stressing on the need for improving the functioning of call centres, the minister suggested that people call ''104'' helpline in case of difficulty in accessing bed facility in hospitals and faced with other problems with regard to COVID- 19.

Appealing to the people that each one of them should take precautions, the minister said the virus spread can be contained only with people''s participation.

Meanwhile, a 70-year old doctor died due to COVID-19 at a private hospital here, becoming the first healthcare professional to succumb to the deadly virus in the state, hospital sources said on Monday. The doctor, running a private clinic here for the last 12 years, was admitted to hospital on June 17 and his end came on Sunday.