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Islamabad: Chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has won his battle against COVID-19 and according to a party spokesperson the chairman of the party tested negative on Friday.
Bilawal had tested positive for the virus on November 26 four days after the PDM public meeting of Peshawar and only one day before his sister Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari’s engagement and had quarantined himself in Bilawal House Karachi.
According to Bilawal Bhutto’s spokesperson Senator Mustafa Nawaz, Chairman Bilawal will now participate in the opposition parties’ bloc Pakistan Democratic Movement’s (PDM) Lahore rally on December 13.
It was this infection which made the PPP chairman miss the PDM rally in Multan on Nov 30 and he had sent his younger sister Aseefa Bhutto Zardari to represent him there.
Meanwhile, former judge of the Accountability Court of Islamabad, Arshad Malik died on Friday due to coronavirus.
According to his family, Malik was admitted to a private hospital in Islamabad and after his condition deteriorated a day earlier, he was put on a ventilator. Malik is survived by two sons and two daughters.
Seven-year jail term
Malik was the judge who convicted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in December 2018 to seven-year jail term in Al-Azizia Steel Mills reference. However, he had acquitted Sharif in the Flagship reference.
However, later Sharif’s daughter Maryam Nawaz in 2019, came up with a leaked video clip purportedly showing that Malik had confessed he was under pressure for convicting Nawaz Sharif in the Al Azizia corruption reference.
In July 2020, after a year-long inquiry, the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) administration committee removed Malik from service on charges of misconduct.
Pakistan on Friday reported 51,507 active cases of COVID-19 as the new virus cases continue to spike in the country. According to the Ministry of National Health Services Pakistan conducted 44,627 tests during the last twenty-four hours that resulted in 3,262 new cases of coronavirus in the country. The total number of Pakistan’s COVID-19 cases has jumped to 410,072 while with 55 death in the same period, the death toll stands at 8,260.
No beds
In Khyber Pakhtunkwha’s (KP) capital city the government and the private hospitals have run out of beds for coronavirus patients after a surge in cases was witnessed on Wednesday.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s provincial assembly was informed by Culture and labour minister Shaukat Ali Yousafzai that two government-run tertiary healthcare facilities in Peshawar, including Hayatabad Medical Complex and Khyber Teaching Hospital, and a private hospital had exhausted their capacity to admit Covid-19 patients.
Currently, only the Lady Reading Hospital was receiving such patients, he told the house. KP on Friday reported 345 coronavirus cases and 11 deaths during the last twenty-four hours. The provincial total number of cases has gone up to 48,264 while the death toll is 1,389.
