close
Friday March 29, 2024

363 succumb to COVID-19 during May in Sindh after 16 more deaths

By Our Correspondent
June 01, 2020

A total of 363 people died of COVID-19 in Sindh during May. On May 31, the last day of the month, a total of 16 people lost their lives due to the viral disease in the province.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said this on Sunday in his daily message about the COVID-19 situation. “With 16 more deaths in the province during the last 24 hours, we have so far lost 481 people due to COVID-19. Of them, 363 died in this month alone,” the CM said.

He explained that the first death due to COVID-19 in Sindh had occurred on March 19, after which eight more patients died of the disease in March. “In April, 109 people lost their lives due to the viral disease but in May, the worst month so far [in terms of casualties], the disease claimed 363 lives.”

He said that during the last 24 hours, a total of 4,100 tests were conducted, which detected 885 new cases. “This means our detection ratio comes to 21.6 per cent which is again higher than various countries,” he said and added that so far Sindh had conducted 180,803 tests, which diagnosed 28,245 cases which constituted 15.6 per cent of the total tests.

Talking about deaths, Shah said so far 481 people had died of the viral disease in Sindh, which resulted in 1.7 per cent mortality rate. “Our 334 patients are in critical condition, of them 62 are on ventilators.”

The CM added that at present 13,954 patients were under treatment, of whom 12,773 were at their homes, 108 at the isolation centers and 1,073 at different hospitals. Another 553 patients had recovered from COVID-19 during the last 24 hours, the CM said. “I am glad to disclose that 13,810 patients or 49 of the total patients have [so far] recovered and leading normal lives,” he said.

Sharing the district wise-figure, Shah said of the 885 new cases in Sindh, 617 belonged to Karachi. They included 184 from District East, 146 from District South, 127 from District Central, 27 from District Korangi, 46 from District Malir and 41 from District West.

He said 37 more cases had been recorded in Sukkur, 34 in Khairpur, 27 in Ghotki, 25 in Hyderabad, 24 each in Larkana and Jacobabad, 16 in Shikarpur, eight each in Jamshoro and Sanghar, five in Mirpurkhas, three each in Kamber-Shahdadkot and Badin, two in Shaheed Benazirabad, and one each in Matiari, Dadu, Tando Allahyar and Tando Mohammad Khan districts.

Local transmission of the novel coronavirus in rural areas had been increasing, the CM said. “The threat [of local transmission] is quite dangerous because it spreads exponentially and we have to contain it by observing social distancing, wearing masks and avoiding social gathering,” he said.

According to the CM, from April 18 to May 28, 34 flights brought 6,378 stranded Pakistanis back to Karachi, of whom 1208 were found infected with COVID-19. “We took proper care of the stranded Pakistanis and kept them in isolation and started discharging those who went on recovering,” he said.

Sharing the data of the plane crash incident in Karachi, Shah said that of 97 bodies, 75 had been identified and handed over to their family members. Now, eight bodies were in the mortuary of Chippa and 14 were at the Edhi morgue.