The total number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan’s Sindhprovince, bordering Iran, on Tuesday rose to 155, bringing the total number ofCOVID-19 infections in the country to 189, an official said.
Official said that Sindh has 155 positive cases, followed byKhyber Pakhtunkhwa with 15, Balochistan 10, Gilgit-Baltistan 5, Islamabad 2 andPunjab 1.
“So far 119 patients in Sukkur have tested positivewhile 115 tested negative. In addition to this, 36 tested positive in theprovince 34 under treatment and two cured,” Spokesperson for the Sindhgovernment Barrister Murtaza Wahab on Tuesday tweeted.
Provincial authorities on Tuesday confirmed five new casesof the novel coronavirus in the Sindh province, pushing the country’s tally ofconfirmed COVID-19 cases to 189, Wahab was quoted as saying by the ExpressTribune.
The number of quarantined pilgrims in Taftan where over9,000, who have returned from Iran and have been quarantined by the Balochistangovernment in a ‘tent city’, the report added.
After completing the 14-day incubation period, the pilgrimswere allowed to travel back to their cities. However, Sindh and KhyberPakhtunkhwa sent the pilgrims to isolation facilities in Sukkur and Dera IsmailKhan and tested them before allowing further travel.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah accused in a pressconference that pilgrims were not properly isolated at Taftan and were kepttogether.
Meanwhile, government is taking steps to contain thepandemic as authorities in Punjab province converted all public sectoruniversities’ hostels into quarantine centres as an immediate arrangement.
Officials said that universities were informed in the provinceto clean all hostels and shift the belongings of students, if there were any,to store rooms after properly tagging them for identity.
The Prime Minister’s Advisor on Health Dr Zafar Mirza saidthat all educational institutions have been closed and their staff stopped fromattending the institutions.
The virus that first emerged in China’s Wuhan city in theHubei province in December last year has spread to 155 countries, infected182,405 people and has claimed 7,154 lives, according to the Johns HopkinsCoronavirus tracker.
China remains the hardest-hit with 80,881 infections and3,226 deaths by the end of Monday. After China, Italy and Iran are the twoworst-affected countries.
Among other things, it decided to close down the westernborder with Afghanistan and Iran. It also ordered the closure of all educationinstitutions in Pakistan till April 5 in view of the virus outbreak.