Two COVID-19 patients die in KPK, infection tally rises to 294

PESHAWAR, March 18: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has confirmed two deaths from novel coronavirus in in KPK, as total number of COVID-19 infections, with 19 fresh cases in Balochsitan, rose to 294 in the country on Wednesday.
The 50-year-old patient had arrived from Saudi Arabia on March 9, K-P government officials confirmed.
Earlier in the day, the Gilgit-Baltistan government had retracted report of suspected coronavirus death.
The deadly pneumonia-like disease, which surfaced in China’s Hubei province late December 2019, has infected around 200,000 people globally with over nearly 8,000 deaths.
The G-B home secretary denied the death report after the government spokesperson Faizullah Faraq confirmed it, saying the patient belonged to Bunar area of Diamer district.
Faraq said 13 COVID-19 patients are currently under treatment in the region.
The news comes minutes after the state minister for health, Dr Zafar Mirza, tweeted that so far no death has been reported from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, in Pakistan.
“There is no COVID19 related reported deaths so far in Pakistan. Allhamdolillah,” he wrote on his official Twitter handle on Wednesday while giving updates on the virus situation in Pakistan.
Dr Mirza said there are 247 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Pakistan. According to a breakup given by him, Sindh has 183 cases, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 19, Balochistan, 15, Gilgit-Baltistan, 13, Punjab, 9, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), 7, and AJK, 1.
However, according to The Express Tribune tally, the total number of COVID-19 cases stands at 294 with 208 cases in Sindh while Punjab has 28, K-P reported 19, Balochistan has 23, Islamabad two, Gilgit-Baltistan 14 and none in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Spokesperson to Sindh CM Murtaza Wahab confirmed 27 new cases among pilgrims returned from Taftan border, raising the provincial tally to 208.-Agencies