The nationwide tally of Covid-19 patients jumped to 23,655 with 8,693 cases reported in Punjab, 8,640 in Sindh, 3,712 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 1,663 in Balochistan, 386 in Gilgit-Baltistan, 485 in Islamabad and 76 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The virus has claimed 545 lives while some 6,217 coronavirus patients have recovered so far.
The Balochistan Health Department, in its daily situational report, Wednesday confirmed one more casualty due to coronavirus in the last 24 hours to bring the provincial death toll to 22. It also reported 168 new cases of Covid-19 to take the province’s tally to 1,663. Some 209 patients have recovered from the mysterious disease in the province so far.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department shared new statistics for coronavirus in the province, according to which nine more people succumbed to the deadly virus, bringing the death toll to 203. With 214 new cases of Covid-19, the province’s tally has risen to 3,712. At least 64 more patients have recuperated in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of recoveries to 939 in the province so far.
The Punjab Health Department, in its daily situational report, reported 560 new coronavirus cases, taking the provincial tally to 8,693 and 12 more deaths to bring the toll to 156. At least 3,086 people have recovered from the virus while 25 are in a critical condition. Some 106,927 tests have been conducted in the province so far.
Provincial health authorities in Sindh reported 451 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of cases in the province to 8,640. Authorities added that nine more people succumbed to the virus in the province.
Special Assistant to the Sindh chief minister Rashid Rabbani also tested positive for the coronavirus.
An attendant at the outpatient department of a charity-run hospital in Karachi died of the coronavirus on Wednesday, officials said. Noman Ahmed, 32, worked as an attendant at Al-Khidmat Hospital in Orangi Town, run by Jamaat-i-Islami’s charity wing.
After he was diagnosed with the virus, he was admitted to an isolation ward at the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi where he remained under treatment for 10 days. He was put on a ventilator and his health subsequently improved and he returned home after being discharged. However, his condition deteriorated again a few days ago, resulting in his death.
Faisal Edhi, the chairman of Edhi Foundation, has recuperated from Covid-19 after testing positive for the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus on April 21. “From the grace of God my first test have become negative from Covid 19, and I am very thankful to all who prayed for my health. I pray for all of those who are ill of corona and other diseases to get well soon. ‘Corona se darna nahi larna hai’,” he wrote on Twitter. According to a report released on Wednesday, at least 90,000 healthcare workers worldwide are believed to have been infected with Covid-19, and possibly twice that, amid reports of continuing shortages of personal protective equipment.
The International Council of Nurses (ICN) said the disease has killed more than 260 nurses, urging authorities to keep more accurate records to help prevent the virus from spreading among staff and patients. It said a month ago that 100 nurses had died in the pandemic sparked by the novel coronavirus that emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. “The figure for healthcare workers’ infections has risen from 23,000 to we think more than 90,000, but that is still an underestimation because it is not [covering] every country in the world,” Howard Catton, ICN’s chief executive officer, said.
The 90,000 estimate is based on information collected on 30 countries from national nursing associations, government figures and media reports. The ICN represents 130 national associations and more than 20 million registered nurses. Catton, noting that 3.5 million cases of Covid-19 have been reported worldwide, said, “If the average health worker infection rate, about 6 per cent we think, is applied to that, the figure globally could be more than 200,000 health worker infections today.”
