58% of virus cases locally transmitted
islamabad — Around 58 per cent of Pakistan total coronavirus cases are locally transmitted, data released by the National Command and Operation Centre revealed on Thursday.
As of Thursday, the total number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan has increased to 6,865 with 128 deaths.
During March, when the pandemic began spreading in the country, Pakistan’s number of imported coronavirus cases, a large chunk of which came from Iran, was higher than locally transmitted ones, Dawn News quoted the NCOC as saying.
But as imported cases began slowing as the government suspended international flights on March 21, reports of infected patients with no travel history began making the rounds.
By April 12, the Prime Minister’s Assistant on Health, Zafar Mirza told media that around half of Pakistan’s total positive cases were infected through local transmission.
Coordinator for National Emergency Centre on Polio Rana Safdar told Dawn News that the country’s polio surveillance system will now be used to trace coronavirus cases, as it was the most effective virus detection system in place in the country.
According to Ministry of National
Health Services spokesperson Sajid Shah, Pakistan conducted 5,540 coronavirus tests on Wednesday. This is the highest number of tests conducted over a 24-hour period in the country.
On an average, Pakistan conducts 2,500 tests in a day.
Shah told Dawn News hat Pakistan’s total number of tests stood at 78,979, adding that as the number of tests conducted rises, so will the number of positive cases.
Highest single-day death toll
Pakistan witnessed the highest single-day death toll on Thursday after 17 people died from coronavirus over the last 24 hours.
The nationwide tally of Covid-19 patients has reached 6,871 with 3,232 cases in Punjab, 2,008 in Sindh, 912 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 291 in Balochistan, 237 in Gilgit-Baltistan, 145 in Islamabad, and 46 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. —