As India prepares itself to fight the deadly virus, its neighbor, Pakistan, has reported a total of 20 cases of COVID-19 after a 14-year-old boy was tested positive in the region of Gilgit Baltistan. The country saw a sudden rise in the positive cases on Tuesday.
According to a health ministry official of Pakistan, the latest case of coronavirus reported in Skardu district is a patient who has a travel history of Iran. The patient had recently returned back to Pakistan with his mother who was immediately quarantined after she showed the symptoms. Along with her, the rest of the family members are also quarantined.
Tuesday also saw the first positively tested patient in Baluchistan who is a 12-year-old boy having a travel history to Iran. The Sindh district, where the patient belongs to, has reported the maximum number of COVID-19 cases in the country with 15.
The track down of people who had come in contact with the patients have led to the six traffic controllers in the Jinnah International Airport at Karachi being quarantined on ‘suspicion’ of symptoms. Simultaneously, all the staff of the traffic control department is being screened.
Apart from the Sindh district, cases were also reported from Hyderabad where a patient who had visited Syria and returned to Hyderabad via Doha is tested positive.
Meanwhile, Zafar Mirza, Special Assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan on health, claimed that nine patients who were tested positive on Monday evening are in a stable condition while one patient in Karachi has recovered successfully and was allowed to go home.
While the World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the COVID-19 as a pandemic, Pakistan and India haven’t reported any death due to the virus yet. China, the hardest-hit country where the virus originated, showed the least infections in a day, Italy announced a complete lockdown of the country.
