Islamabad, Peshawar and Gilgit lead jab drive

Active cases across the nation drop lower than 25,000

Pakistan yesterday achieved a milestone when the number of active Covid-19 cases 19 dropped lower than 25,000 with the positivity rate coming down to 1.4 per cent.

According to the country’s National Command & Operation Centre (NCOC), Pakistan’s toll after 16 fatalities in the last 24 hours, reached 28,328 while 622 cases were reported against 44,334 tests conducted in the past one day.

Recovery rate doubles

The recovery rate is 95.8 per cent as 1,112 persons recovered from Covid-19 in 24 hours, the figure is almost twice the number of infections in one day, the NCOC data reveals. There are 24,699 active cases of Covid-19 in the country, it further shared the information on its portal.

Minister for Planning, Development & Special Initiative Asad Umar who is also chairman of the NCOC, in a tweet regarded Islamabad, Peshawar, Mirpur and Gilgit as the ‘best’ cities in the region with regard to people’s response to vaccination.

In the ‘good’ category were Skardu, Sargodha and Charsadda while Hyderabad, Nowshehra, Faisalabad, Quetta, Karachi, Mingora and Mardan needed to improve, according to the tweet. “District admin & health teams in these cities need to improve performance,” he said.

Japan provides equipment

Meanwhile, the Japan government has provided cold chain optimisation equipment worth $6.59 million (Dh24.36 million) through the Unicef. Pakistan’s Parliamentary Secretary on Health, Dr Nausheen Hamid received the equipment Japan’s envoy Matsuda Kuninori, in the presence of Aida Girma, Unicef’s representative.