Pakistan records 7,000 cases of COVID-19 for 4th consecutive day

Islamabad: Pakistan on Sunday reported 7,978 cases of COVID-19 after 64,014 tests conducted in last 24 hours.

According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), the forum entrusted with monitoring the coronavirus situation in the country, 29 persons succumbed to pandemic in the last 24 hours.

Sunday was the fourth consecutive day with more than 7,000 cases in 24 hours as the country is battling to cope with the evolving Omicron situation.

According to the NCOC, the national positivity rate also jumped to 12.46 per cent from 11.31 per cent which remained almost unchanged for the previous two days.

In the wake of the current surge in Omicron and COVID-19 cases, the active cases of coronavirus have also increased and on Sunday the country recorded 100,005 active cases.

With surge in COVID-19 cases in Punjab where 2,212 cases were reported in last 24 hours, 1,221 in Lahore alone, medicines used to treat flu and fever have disappeared from the shelves in a majority of the pharmacies in Lahore and elsewhere in Punjab province.

Even the pharmacies where the routine medicines for fever are available are selling them in black or on two to three-time rate of the actual price.

The public is complaining against non-availability of Panadol and other tablets used in favour while the shopkeepers attribute this shortage to erratic and interrupted supply of medicines.

The Panadol crisis has hit the city and medical store owners have now started advance booking of Panadol tablets to cash in on the ever-increasing demand.

Earlier in November 2021, Punjab Primary Health Department ensured supply of Panadol at medical stores in Lahore located close to all the government hospitals on a priority basis.

According to the Drug Control Wing, the province has a sufficient stock of 69 million fever tablets of which 16.9 million are in Lahore alone.

“We have constituted teams to raid different medical stores to ensure availability of the tablet and all other fever-drugs in Lahore and rest of the province. Strict action including cancellation of the licence of pharmacies will be taken if they are found charging extra money on them,” said a senior official of the Drug Regulatory Authority.

80 million fully vaccinated

On one hand, Pakistan is recording spike in COVID-19 cases, on the other hand, its tally of fully vaccinated individuals has crossed 80 million and according to the Ministry of the National Health Services (NHS), 80.74 million persons were fully vaccinated by Sunday.

So far, 174 million persons have been administered at least one dose of COVID-19, the ministry’s portal revealed.

Besides first and second dose, 2.242 million booster doses have also been administered.