PESHAWAR: Twenty persons died and 584 more got infected with Covid-19 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday as positivity soared to 10 per cent in Swabi district where bed occupancy also swelled to 84 per cent.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa overall infectivity rate was recorded 3 per cent but Peshawar, Mardan and Swabi registered 11.4 per cent, 10.5 per cent and 10.4 per cent positivity rate, respectively. A health department report said that seven persons breathed their last due to the virus in Swat, Six in Mardan, three in Haripur, two in Kohat and one each in Dera Ismail Khan and Peshawar.

The report said that province-wide fatalities due to coronavirus reached 5,175 and the number of cases was 166,564. Of the virus-hit people, 153, 619 patients (92 per cent) including 415 persons recorded during the last 24 hours have recovered from the pandemic. The department tested 11,637 suspected patients.

20 more die of coronavirus in KP

The province has 7,770 active cases, mostly in Peshawar division. Peshawar district recorded 183 new patients, Mardan 55, Swabi 49, Malakand 41, Nowshera 36, Dera Ismail Khan 35, Bannu 30, Swat 26, Chitral Lower 24, Abbottabad 22 and Bajaur 12. The number of admitted patients in the province is 1,701 including 55 on ventilators.

Positivity in Nowshera was recorded 6 per cent, in Abbottabad 5.4 per cent and in Swat 5.3 per cent, according to the report.

Bed occupancy in Swat was recorded 55 per cent, in Peshawar 53 per cent, in Nowshera 47 per cent, in Abbottabad 43 per cent and in Mardan 39 per cent.

Officials said that vaccination was in progress throughout the province with main focus on Peshawar, Mardan and Swat where the process was slow. The health department has enlisted support of the local elders, religious scholars and political representatives to speed up the inoculation as well ensure adherence to the standard operating procedures.

“We plan to achieve the target of 70 per cent immunisation till end of the current year. The district administrations have main role to ensure that the people follow the Covid-19 precautions whereas the health department is taking care of the treatment and vaccination aspects of the virus,” said officials.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has 19 million people above the age of 18 years, who need to be administered jabs to achieve herd immunity.

“Availability of vaccine is no issue but we need to create demand for vaccination so the people could be safeguarded against the virus, which has become very dangerous in view of the widespread existence of Delta variant,” said officials.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2021