Staff Reporter
Islamabad
The number of coronavirus deaths in Pakistan surged to 11,055 on Tuesday, according to the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) as a new Covid-19 variant threatens the country’s prevention measures to curb the pandemic.
Fifty-eight deaths have been reported in the country in the last 24 hours by novel coronavirus as the number of positive cases has surged to 523,011.
Since the start of January 2021, the country has witnessed 48.8 deaths on average every day with hospital intensive care units nearing capacity across the country as active Covid-19 cases surge to 35,485.
On Tuesday, the country’s Covid-19 case tally stood at 523,011 with 1,800 new infections recorded in the past 24 hours. The NCOC data shows that 40,833 people have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 since the beginning of the new year — at an average of 2268.5 infections per day.
Pakistan has one of the highest recovery rates in the world as 91.1% (or 476,471) of all Covid-19 patients have made a full recovery. In the past 24 hours, the country saw 1,243 testing negative for the virus.
Meanwhile, Dr. Faisal Sultan, the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health, told a news channel that Pakistan will receive its first batch of the coronavirus vaccine directly from manufacturers, as well as the global platform of Covaz, in the first quarter of the year, he said.
The government will be ordering doses from more than one international supplier within this quarter, Dr. Faisal Sultan said.
Pakistan will only procure vaccines that have been approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan “after evaluation of its quality vis a vis efficacy data”, Dr. Sultan explained.
Sindh govt decides to set up emergency fund to buy Covid vaccine. The Sindh government on Tuesday decided to set up emergency fund to buy coronavirus vaccine and Rs 1.5 billion will be initially allocated for the procurement this year.
The Sindh government has contacted AstraZeneca, British manufacturer, and China’s Sinopharm to obtain the vaccine. It has been learnt that 175,000 frontline workers will be vaccinated in phase one in the province.
Sindh Health Minister Azra Pechuho said in her statement that the federal government is delaying to procure the vaccine. The Sindh government is making an online portal for persons above sixty, she added.
