Pakistan sees over 4,000 new COVID-19 cases, highest in 2 months

South Asian country, however, has expedited its vaccination drive with nearly 0.8M doses administered in 24 hours

By Islamuddin Sajid

ISLAMABAD (AA) - Pakistan on Wednesday reported over 4,119 new COVID-19 cases, the highest since May 19, as the Delta variant, the strain of coronavirus first identified in India, is spreading across the country.

On May 19, Pakistan recorded 4,207 cases that slowly declined to 663 until June 21, but has since spiked again.

The new numbers brought the caseload to over 1.015 million, the Health Ministry said. Some 44 more people died of the virus, raising the total to 23,133, while 935,742 have so far recovered.

Pakistan has expedited its inoculation drive in the past weeks, and anyone 18 or over is eligible for vaccination. Over 27 million vaccine doses have been administered to date, with a record over 778,000 shots in the last 24 hours.

"Yet another daily vaccination record set," Asad Umar, who heads the country's anti-virus task force, tweeted, adding that the new target is 1 million vaccinations in a day.

But only a little more than 5.4 million people are fully vaccinated. Pakistan has a population of over 200 million.

Kaynak:

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