MUZAFFARABAD: As the number of Covid-19 patients in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) surged to 36 after a man and a young girl tested positive in Mirpur and Poonch districts, respectively, the territory also saw its second patient recover on Saturday, officials said.

District Health Officer Mirpur Dr Fida Hussain told reporters in a late-night briefing that 29 samples were tested in the Mirpur lab on Saturday — 19 from Mirpur and 7 from the neighbouring Bhimber district -- and all but one were negative.

The only positive result, he said, was that of a volunteer of a diaspora-funded local charity, whose chairman and three workers have already tested positive. The victim had been shifted to an isolation ward, he said.

Dr Hussain said that a Covid-19 patient, who was at the isolation ward since March 26, had recovered from the disease as his sample had also tested negative. The expatriate from the UK would be relieved for his home on the outskirts of Mirpur on Sunday, he said.

Health minister Dr Najeeb Naqi told Dawn that a five-year-old girl in Rawalakot, who was niece of a Covid-19 patient, had also tested positive.

In Muzaffarabad lab, the minister said, 15 samples were examined on Saturday, which included that of the attendant of the first positive patient from the state capital, and all were negative.

On Friday night, a 67-year-old cancer patient in AIMS, Muzaffarabad, had tested positive, following which 61 hospital employees, 29 of them doctors, and many of his contacts had been placed in quarantine at different places.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2020