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Pakistan extends lockdown as COVID-19 cases cross 6,000

Islamabad, April 15 (IANS) Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has extended the ongoing lockdown till April 30, as the number of coronavirus cases in the country crossed 6,000, with 113 deaths, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

According to the Ministry, confirmed cases in the country 6,000.

The country also reported 11 more deaths, the highest in a day so far, while 1,446 patients have recovered and have been discharged from the hospitals.

A total of 73,439 people have been tested in the country of over 200 million people, with 3,280 tests conducted over the past 24 hours.

With 2,945, cases, the northeastern Punjab province – which accounts for more than half of the country’s population – is the worst-hit area in Pakistan.

The southern Sindh province has 1,518 cases, northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has 865, and southwestern Balochistan province 240, according to the ministry’s data.

The northern Gilgit-Baltistan region accounts for 234 of the country’s total cases, while the capital Islamabad has 140, and Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir 46 cases so far.

Official data showed that the recovery ratio in the confirmed cases is 24.1 per cent while the death ratio stands at 1.8 per cent, slightly high compared to last week’s 1.5 per cent, Brinkwire reported.

Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab province, is so far the worst-hit city with over 20 per cent cases of the total 5,988, while the southern port city of Karachi ranks the second with 17.68 per cent of the infections.

Since the virus emerged last December in the Chinese city of Wuhan, it has spread to over 200 countries and regions.

There are over 1.98 million confirmed cases globally and more than 126,700 deaths, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins University. The recoveries exceeded 493,600 so far.

Khan on Tuesday extended the ongoing lockdown until the end of this month to fight the pandemic.

–IANS

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