ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s health ministry on Saturday reported ten deaths from coronavirus, the highest single-day fatalities since March 3, as the South Asian nation once again witnesses a spike in COVID-19 infections.
The national COVID positivity ratio was recorded at 3.28 percent in the last 24 hours, according to data shared by the National Institute of Health (NIH), which oversees the country’s pandemic response.
Health authorities conducted 22,451 coronavirus tests, of which 737 turned out to be positive in the last 24 hours. Over 180 patients are currently in critical care across the country.
As Pakistan witnesses an uptick in infections, health officials have warned that the country may potentially face another COVID-19 outbreak.
“The risk of sixth COVID-19 wave prevails in Pakistan, but we are not there yet,” Muazzam Abbas Ranjha, a biostatistician at the NIH, told Arab News on July 8.
Ranjha said the government was closely monitoring the situation and would issue new guidelines for the public, if the infection rate touched a critical level in coming weeks.
The NIH has also advised the public to follow health guidelines and get vaccinated.
Pakistan disbanded its National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), its main pandemic response body, on March 31 as infections fell to the lowest since the outbreak began in 2020.
However, the South Asian country on May 23 reconstituted the NCOC at the NIH after health officials detected a new omicron sub-variant in a passenger arriving from Qatar. The new sub-variant of omicron is said to be highly infectious, though not as deadly as the previous coronavirus strains.
