Hyderabad, Dec 3 : Telangana has scaled an unprecedented peak with active coronavirus cases dropping below 10,000 as the state's recovery rate continues to improve. The number of active cases stood at 8,999 on Thursday, which include 6,922 patients who are either in home or institutional isolation. The recovery rate jumped to 96.14 per cent with 873 people recovering from the virus during the last 24 hours, health officials said on Thursday. The recovery rate is better than the national average of 94.1 per cent. The number of recovered cases mounted to 2,61,028. With 609 new cases during the last 24 hours, the state's Covid tally rose to 2,71,492. Three persons succumbed to the virus during the same period, taking the toll to 1,465, officials added. The fatality rate stands at 0.53 per cent against the national average of 1.5 per cent. According to the Director of Public Health and Family Welfare, 44.96 per cent of the deaths were due to Covid-19 while remaining 55.04 per cent were on account of comorbidities. The declining trend in new cases continued in Greater Hyderabad and districts. The state capital reported 114 new cases. Rangareddy district recorded the second highest number at 48 followed by Medchal Malkajgiri (45), Warangal Urban (29), Khammam (24), Bhadradri Kothagudem (24) and Nalgonda (23). A total of 53,686 tests were being conducted during the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative number of tests to 56,05,306. Officials said 50,940 samples were tested in government-run laboratories and 2,746 samples in private. Eighteen government-run laboratories, 54 private laboratories and 1,076 Rapid Antigen test centres are conducting the tests in the state. The daily testing target for the state is 5,600 per day as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 140 per million per day. Out of 2,71,492 total positive cases so far, 70 per cent (1,90,044) were asymptomatic while the remaining 30 per cent (81,448) were symptomatic. The data shows that 63.9 per cent of those tested positive so far were aged between 21-50 years. As many as 22.91 per cent were aged above 51 years. The positive cases include 13.18 per cent who were below 20 years. Of the total cases, 60.44 per cent were males and 39.37 per cent females. /IANS