Pakistan reports first Covid19 death, cases surge to 193

Islamabad: Pakistan reported its first casualty due to the novel coronavirus on Tuesday, health ministry officials said as the number of positive cases of the COVID-19 infections rose to 193 in the country.

The first fatality was reported from Lahore. Meanwhile, Sindh has 155 positive cases, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 15, Balochistan 10, Gilgit-Baltistan 5, Islamabad 2 and Punjab 6, officials said.

"One COVID-19 patient who was brought from Hafizabad, some 150 kms from Lahore, died here on Tuesday," Punjab Health Minister Yasmin Rashid told a press conference here on Tuesday.

Provincial authorities on Tuesday confirmed five new cases of the novel coronavirus in the Sindh province, pushing the country's tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 193, Wahab was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune.

The number of quarantined pilgrims in Taftan where over 9,000, who have returned from Iran and have been quarantined by the Balochistan government in a 'tent city', the report added.

After completing the 14-day incubation period, the pilgrims were allowed to travel back to their cities. However, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa sent the pilgrims to isolation facilities in Sukkur and Dera Ismail Khan and tested them before allowing further travel.

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah accused in a press conference that pilgrims were not properly isolated at Taftan and were kept together.

Meanwhile, government is taking steps to contain the pandemic as authorities in Punjab province converted all public sector universities' hostels into quarantine centres as an immediate arrangement.

Officials said that universities were informed in the province to clean all hostels and shift the belongings of students, if there were any, to store rooms after properly tagging them for identity.

The Prime Minister's Advisor on Health Dr Zafar Mirza said that all educational institutions have been closed and their staff stopped from attending the institutions.