Lahore/Quetta/Karachi/Peshawar (Staff Report/Agencies): The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Pakistan rose to 1,283,475 on Friday after 252 new cases surfaced in the country during the last 24 hours.
Overall 474,818 cases were confirmed in Sindh, 442,804 in Punjab, 179,855 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 33,467 in Balochistan, 107,580 in Islamabad, 10,411 in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and 34,540 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).
As per the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) data, 35,176 tests were conducted in last 24 hours while positivity ratio remained 0.71%.
According to the government's COVID-19 portal, the death toll related to coronavirus has reached to 28,697 with 7 fatalities reported during the last 24 hours.
Over the last twenty four hours, total number of recovered COVID-19 patients across the country reached 1,241,289 after another 294 virus recoveries were reported.
Meanwhile, South African scientists have detected a new variant of COVID-19 and are conducting experiments to understand its implications.
On Thursday, South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said that it has found 22 cases of variant B.1.1.529 following genomic sequencing.
South Africa was the first country to report the cases of the Beta variant last year. Beta is one of only four labelled "of concern" by the World Health Organization (WHO) because there is evidence that it is more contagious and vaccines are less effective against it.
It is pertinent to mention that the global coronavirus cases have reportedly surpassed 260.375 million and death toll tops 5,200,647.
