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Thursday March 28, 2024

103 perish in a day

By our correspondents
June 24, 2020

LAHORE/KARACHI: As many as 103 more people died of COVID-19 in the country on Tuesday bringing the death toll to 3,731. The total number of patients have reached 187,411.

In Punjab, the death of 60 more COVID-19 patients raised toll to 1,495, while confirmed cases of novel coronavirus raced to 68,308 with the addition of 1,365 new infections in the province, according to statistics released by Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department (P&SHD) on Tuesday.

So far 582 casualties have been confirmed from Lahore, 283 Rawalpindi, 144 Faisalabad, 111 Multan, 61 Gujranwala, 52 Sialkot, 37 Rahim Yar Khan, 31 each Gujrat and Bahawalpur, 22 Sargodha, 18 Sheikhupura, 16 Dera Ghazi Khan, 14 Mianwali, 13 Muzaffargarh, 10 each Sahiwal and Kasur, eight Nankana Sahib, six Toba Tek Singh, five each Attock, Okara, Chiniot and Hafizabad, four each Jhang, Bhakkar and Lodhran, three each Bahawalnagar and Jhelum, two each Rajanpur, Narowal, Khushab and Vehari, one each from Khanewal and Pakpattan and none from Chakwal, Layyah and Mandi Bahauddin.

So far 34,820 COVID-19 patients have been confirmed from Lahore, 5,584 Rawalpindi, 4,840 Multan, 4,613 Faisalabad, 2,517 Gujranwala, 1,852 Sialkot, 1,786 Gujrat, 1,178 Dera Ghazi Khan, 1,154 Bahawalpur, 910 Rahim Yar Khan, 906 Sheikhupura, 824 Sargodha, 771 Muzaffargarh, 508 Hafizabad, 505 Kasur, 492 Sahiwal, 426 Toba Tek Singh, 372 Vehari, 364 Jhelum, 348 Bahawalnagar, 302 Layyah, 289 Nankana Sahib, 288 Attock, 283 Lodhran, 275 Mianwali, 257 Mandi Bahauddin, 255 Jhang, 223 Khanewal, 220 Okara, 213 Chiniot,, 194 Narowal, 189 Khushab, 185 Bhakkar, 156 Rajanpur, 130 Pakpattan and 79 Chakwal.

As per spokesperson for Corona Monitoring Room at Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department, so far 435,187 tests have been performed in the province. Out of these, he said, 68,308 have been tested positive for the virus. He said that 21,177 cases have been reported from 31-45 years age group. As many as 19,580 cases have been reported from 16-30 years age group.

He said that lowest number of cases, 1,184, have been reported from above 75 years age group. He said that 19,580 patients have recovered and returned home, 1,495 died, while 47, 233 were isolated at homes or under treatment at different quarantine centres and health facilities.

Meanwhile, federal health authorities told The News that more than 300 COVID-19 patients have passed away in their homes during self-isolation over the past three months.

According to the authorities, of the 89 COVID-19 patients who died during 24 hours between June 21 and 22, at least six patients lost their lives at their homes, including four in Sindh and one each in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

“So far, 3,590 people have lost their lives due to COVID-19 in Pakistan, of whom 323 or 9% died at homes. These were the people who were staying at homes after testing positive. A majority of them were either asymptomatic or with mild symptoms. When the authorities checked about their well-being on phone, their families reported them dead,” an official of the National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (NHSR&C) said.

The health authorities explained that of the 3,590 COVID-19 victims in Pakistan, 3,267 died at various hospitals. They added that despite all the problems, the case fatality rate (CFR) of COVID-19 in Pakistan has been 1.98% compared to 5.20% globally.

Among those patients who fell prey to viral disease at their homes, 182 belonged to Sindh, which is the highest number of deaths in home isolation. A total of 141 people died at home in the rest of the country, including Punjab, KP, Balochistan, Islamabad, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir.

According to the authorities, of the 3,590 deaths in Pakistan due to the novel coronavirus, 2,589 were men who constituted 72% of the total deaths, which suggests that men are more prone to contract the disease compared to women as the mortality among the male COVID-19 patients is around three times higher compared to the female patients.

“At the same time, 72% of all the deceased had chronic comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, renal issues, asthma and other chronic medical illnesses,” an official said.

Healthcare providers

So far, 53 healthcare providers have lost their lives in the country, including 37 doctors, one medical student, two nurses and 10 paramedics while the details of the remaining three have been sought from Punjab, an official said. “We have lost two doctors during the last 24 hours, including one from District Sujawal in Sindh and the other from District Sahiwal in Punjab,” the official added.

Age and gender distribution

Officials said that men between 50 and 70 years with comorbidities were three times more likely to die due to COVID-19 in Pakistan as compared to women, adding that around 75% of the deaths occurred in the age group of 51 years and above in the country.

“Around 76%of the total confirmed cases are in the age group of up to 50 years but fortunately but only 25%of the 3,590 COVID-19 deaths occurred in this age group. We have 1,051 deaths in the age group of 51-60 years followed by 992 deaths in the age group of 61-70 years,” the official added.

Sharing the gender-wise data of deaths, the official said that a total of 2,589 men, 1,000 women and one transgender person had so far lost their lives due to the viral illness in Pakistan.

According to him, there had been only nine deaths among children up to 10 years of age, 31 among youngsters between 11 and 20 years of age, 97 among people of the 21-30 age group, 547 among people of the 41-50 age group, 1,051 among the age group of 51-60, 992 among the age group of 61-70, 492 among the age group of 71-80, 138 among people between 81 and 90 years and only 12 deaths were recorded among people above 91 years of age.

Most affected

Punjab is the most affected province of the country where 40% of the 3,590 deaths have occurred during the last three months, officials said, adding that Sindh recorded 30% of the deaths, followed by KP where 23% of the deaths occurred.

Hospitalization

The federal health authorities said that around 91% of the 3,590 deaths were reported from hospitals where the average hospital stay for COVID-19 patients was 4.9 days. They added that 1,773 hospitalised patients died on ventilators whose average stay on the life support was 2.8 days while the remaining 1,339 patients died ‘off vent’ at the hospitals.