KARACHI: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said on Friday that 622 new cases of coronavirus were diagnosed while six more people lost their lives overnight, taking the death toll to 118, or 1.76 per cent of the total patients.

He said this in his message released from CM House here.

The chief minister said that 3,384 tests were conducted against which 622 new cases emerged. He added that so far 57,761 samples had been tested against which 6,675 cases emerged.

Mr Shah said that six patients lost their lives while struggling against the virus. “So far the number of death has reached 118, which constituted 1.76pc of the total patients.”

He said that at present 5,262 patients were under treatment, of them 4,044, or 77pc, were at home isolation, 733 at isolation centres and 485 at different hospitals.

Vast majority of new cases in Sindh are from Karachi

He added that 45 patients were in critical condition and 16 of them were on ventilators.

190 passengers test positive for Covid-19

Giving details of the stranded Pakistanis brought here through special flights, the chief minister said that 483 landed at Karachi airport by three flights from Dubai, Sharjah and Colombo.

He said that 190 passengers tested positive for the coronavirus.

Mr Shah said that out of 190 positive cases, 92 belonged to Sindh, 56 to Punjab, 24 to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 18 to Balochistan.

Sharing the data of Karachi, the chief minister said that 446 cases, including of 190 stranded Pakistanis, were reported in Karachi. Of them, 173 were in district Malir, 92 in East, 70 in South, 56 in Central, 33 in West and 22 cases were in Korangi.

He said that 17 cases were diagnosed in Ghotki, 19 in Hyderabad, 11 in Jacobabad, 23 in Larkana, 15 in Shikarpur and six in Sukkur.

The chief minister said if 190 cases of stranded Pakistanis were excluded from the total of 622 cases in Sindh, the number of local cases would come to 472.

“This figure shows that the pandemic is still playing havoc in Sindh,” he said and added this situation called for observance of social distancing and adopting WHO’s guidelines.

Mr Shah said that the health department personnel, particularly doctors, paramedical staff and technicians handling lab tests, were providing selfless service.

He paid them rich tribute and urged everyone to respect them and salute them.

He said that the virus was spreading day by day and, therefore, extra precautionary measures must be taken all over Sindh.

He prayed for the early recovery of all the patients under treatment.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2020