Another coronavirus case confirmed in Sindh, national tally reaches 29

The provincial health department on Saturday confirmed a new coronavirus case in Karachi, taking the national tally to 29 cases.

The 38-year-old patient arrived from Saudi Arabia a few days ago and was tested positive today.

The provincial tally now stands at 16 confirmed COVID-19 cases. Two individuals tested positive earlier have recovered and have been discharged from health facilities.

The provincial authorities added that 14 individuals remain under treatment in Sindh.

As part of precationary measures, the Sindh government has closed schools till May 30.

The federal government, a day earlier, decided to adopt a number of precautionary measures to contain the spread of novel coronavirus including sealing the country’s western border with Iran and Afghanistan and cancelling the Pakistan Day parade scheduled for March 23.

The closure of the two borders will begin on March 16 “for an initial period of two weeks… in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19, in the best interest of all three brotherly countries”, the Ministry of Interior wrote to multiple inspector generals of Frontier Corps – a paramilitary force that operates in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa – in a letter on Friday.

The decision was taken by the country’s top civil and military leadership at a meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC), presided over Prime Minister Imran Khan in Islamabad on Friday.

The huddle also decided to keep all educational institutions in the country closed till April 5 as a precautionary measure to contain the spread of coronavirus.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already declared the outbreak of COVID-19, a mysterious pneumonia-like disease caused by the coronavirus, a pandemic.

 

 

Read The Express Tribune's live coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak in Pakistan and the around the globe here.