— New daily vaccine record as 2 million doses administered in the last 24 hours
— China develops Covid-19 testing that delivers results in four minutes
ISLAMABAD: The daily number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan fell to 2,799 in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed on Tuesday, falling below 3,000 for the first time since January 12.
The new infections brought the total number of cases to 1.46 million since the nation’s outbreak emerged in March 2020.
The country logged its highest single-day infections — 8,183 — on January 29 compared to the previous record of 6,825 cases on June 13, 2020.
The health authorities tested 52,327 samples to receive a positivity rate of 5.34 percent, down from 7.5 percent the previous day and the lowest since January 12.
Statistics 8 Feb 22:
Total Tests in Last 24 Hours: 52,327
Positive Cases: 2799
Positivity %: 5.34%
Deaths :37
Patients on Critical Care: 1668— NCOC (@OfficialNcoc) February 8, 2022
Moreover, 37 people died of the virus in the last 24 hours, increasing the death toll from the crisis to 29,553.
But the number of active cases dropped to 87,168, including 1,668 those who are in critical condition.
Sindh is the most-affected province of the country in terms of the number of cases with 553,112 infections, followed by Punjab which has reported 490,103 cases.
Meanwhile, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), a department leading the campaign against the pandemic, said the total number of recoveries soared to 1.34 million.
The government has administered the first dose of a Covid-19 jab to over 111 million to date, while over 87 million people have been fully vaccinated, according to official data.​​​​​​​ It injected over 2 million doses in the last 24 hours.
Vaccine Statistics:
Vaccine administered across Pakistan in last 24 hours:
2.017,179
Total vaccine administered till now: 187,934,017— NCOC (@OfficialNcoc) February 8, 2022
Last week, the government launched a countrywide door-to-door vaccination drive.
Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar, who leads the anti-virus strategy, told a press conference that some 35 million vaccine doses will be administered during the two-week drive.
Over 55,000 mobile teams will go and carry out vaccinations at home, Umar said.
NEW ‘HIGHLY ACCURATE’ VIRUS TEST:
Chinese scientists say they have developed a new coronavirus test that is accurate as a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) lab test but gives results within four minutes.
PCR tests are widely considered the most accurate and sensitive for the virus that causes Covid-19, but they usually take several hours.
Some countries have experienced severe backlogs in the face of heavy testing demand, fuelled by the explosive spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Researchers from Fudan University in Shanghai say they have a solution.
In a peer-reviewed article published Monday in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, the team said their sensor — which uses microelectronics to analyse genetic material from swabs — can reduce the need for time-consuming Covid lab tests.
“We implemented an electromechanical biosensor for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 into an integrated and portable prototype device, and show that it detected (virus RNA) in less than four minutes,” the team said in the paper, referring to the official name of the Covid pathogen.
The researchers said their method offers speed, ease of operation, high sensitivity and portability.
Their trial involved taking samples from 33 people in Shanghai who were infected with the coronavirus, with PCR tests conducted in parallel.
The results from their method were a “perfect” match with the PCR tests, according to the article.
Their study involved testing the new method on 54 samples, which included people with fever who did not have the coronavirus, those with influenza, and healthy volunteers.
Those cases did not yield any false positives, the team said.
The Fudan researchers said that once developed, their testing device can be used for quick testing in a variety of situations, including airports, health facilities and “even at home”.
PCR tests are not only slow, but they also require lab infrastructure that can be limited in many countries, reducing the number of cases that can be handled each day.
— With additional input from Agence France-Presse
