Pakistan records fourth coronavirus related death

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - Pakistani authorities on Friday confirmed two more deaths from coronavirus, or COVID-19, raising the total number of casualties in the country to four.

A 77-year old patient, who died in a hospital in the southern port city of Karachi, was already suffering from cancer and diabetes, Azra Fazal Pechuho, health minister of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, confirmed in a video message.

Another old lady with 20-year-history of diabetes passed away in Dera Ismail Khan district in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, provincial health minister Taimur Khan Jhagra said in a Twitter post.

She had been quarantined in a facility after recently returning from Iran, he added.

Earlier this week, two patients who had returned from abroad died of coronavirus in the same province.

The third one from Karachi had no history of traveling aboard, raising fears that he may have contracted the virus locally.

The number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan rose to 454, with 245 in the southern Sindh province alone, officials and local media reported on Friday.

Health officials said new cases were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, and the northeastern Punjab province.

Most of the new patients had recently returned from neighboring Iran, which has reported the highest number of cases after China and Italy.

The virus emerged in Wuhan, China, last December, and has spread to at least 164 countries and territories around the globe, according to the World Health Organization.

According to John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre, 244,523 cases have been confirmed worldwide with 10,030 death by Friday morning.

COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, is not fatal in all cases and a vast majority of patients do fully recover.

So far 86,031 people have completely recovered from the disease, reports the Resource Centre.