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4 years ago

April virus cases explode

564 new cases recorded with five deaths in 24 hrs

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The number of COVID-19 patients was 150 times as many last month, compared with March, according to state-run Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

In the last 24 hours on Thursday morning, a total of 564 more people got infected with the virus, raising the tally of confirmed cases to 7,667. During the period, five more people died from novel coronavirus, taking the fatalities to 168, the DG health data said.

The country recorded its first COVID-19 case on March 8 and the number of confirmed cases was just 51 at the end of March, but the number kept ballooning from the second week of April as a result of what is known as community transmission.

The rapid rise in the number of COVID-19 patients also indicates that the country is going through the most critical phase of the viral infection, according to healthcare professionals.

Calling upon the people to stay-at-home, they suggested the government further intensify its measures to ensure complete lockdown and social distancing to stem the spread of the deadly virus.

"A total of 4,965 samples have been tested in the 29 PCR labs since Wednesday morning and 564 tested positive," additional director general of the directorate Dr Nasima Sultana said at a virtual news conference.

"Simultaneously, five more people died from the viral strains. With the latest numbers," she said, adding the number of confirmed cases and death toll stood at 7,667 and 168 respectively.

Among the five deceased, three were male and two were female.

Two aged between 40-50 years and the rest were above 60, she said.

Dr Sultana said 10 more people recuperated from the infection, marking 160 recovery.

In case of quarantine, she said a total of 2,182 additional people were kept in both home and institutional quarantine and some 7,082 others got released from the quarantine facilities during the period.

Currently, 71,482 people are in quarantine and 1,420 others were in isolation, the directorate official said.

Public health rights activist Dr Rashid-e-Mahbub said the sharp rise in the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases in April indicated that the situation might deteriorate this month.

"We need to be much more careful now as we're passing through the most critical period of the infection. We must stay at home and maintain safe social distancing," he said.

Mr Mahbub, a surgeon by training, called upon the government to ensure complete lockdown and social distancing in the coming days to bring the virus outbreak to its heel.

The health ministry has already predicted that some 50, 000 people would be infected with the virus by the end of this month while the number of fatalities would reach 1,000.

It also suggested intensifying measures to ensure lockdown and social distancing.

According to real time data of Worldometer information until 6:00pm on Tuesday, more than 3.2 million people were infected with the virus. Of them, 228,819 persons have died from the viral strains.

The United States emerged as the worst victim of the new coronavirus reporting the highest infection of 1,064,737 and death cases of 61,670, the data showed.

In terms of death, other worst affected countries were Italy (27,682), followed by Spain (24,275), United Kingdom (26,097) and France (24,087).

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