ISLAMABAD: Pakistan reported 118 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, the second consecutive day that fatalities have exceeded 100, the Ministry of National Health Services (MoNHS) said on Thursday.
The government portal keeping track of the outbreak in the country registered 135 deaths a day earlier — up from 118 reported on Tuesday and the highest number of fatalities since June 20.
According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) data, 64,685 tests were conducted on Wednesday after which 5,395 people tested positive for the contagion disease. The total number of cases in the country is 739,818 with a national transmission rate of 8.34 per cent.
Punjab recorded the most deaths during the last 24 hours at 68 followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) with 29.
Sindh has been the worst hit with 270,310 cases followed by Punjab where 258,441 people have been tested positive, the statement said.
CANSINO DISTANCES ITSELF FROM BLOOD CLOT FEARS:
China’s CanSino Biologics has sought to distance its Covid-19 vaccine from concerns that products made using a similar technology could be linked to rare events of serious blood clotting, South China Morning Post reported.
In a filing to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, the company said no serious adverse events related to blood clots had been reported among the almost 1 million doses of Ad5-nCoV vaccine that had been administered to date.
The product is licenced in China, Pakistan, Mexico and Hungary.
The announcement follows US federal health agencies’ recommendation on Tuesday that the use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, which uses a similar technology to CanSinoBIO’s product, should be paused for at least a few days after six women younger than 50 developed rare blood clots after receiving the shot.
Pakistan had participated in phase 3 trials of the single-dose vaccine, which has an efficacy rate of 65.7 per cent at preventing symptomatic cases.
In March, Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar had announced to import CanSino jabs in bulk to package three million doses locally. “We will be getting the bulk vaccine by mid-April from CanSino from which 3 million vaccine doses can be made,” he said.
“The bulk vaccine received will be formulated, sterilised, and packed in Pakistan.”
The consignment will be in addition to over a million doses of Sinopharm and CanSino vaccines, which the government received in two batches earlier this month.
