Pakistan's COVID death toll crosses grim mark of 22,000 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's coronavirus death toll crossed the grim figure of 22,000 on Monday, as Sindh province continued to report the highest number of fresh cases in the country.

Thirty patients died and 907 new cases were detected in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of National Health Services said in its daily bulletin.

Now, the death toll stands at 22,007 and national caseload at 949,175. Of the 907 new cases, the majority of them were reported from Sindh province at 595 cases.

The coronavirus has greatly impacted the province. So far, Sindh has reported over 3.07 lakh cases. Pakistan on Sunday received 1.55 million doses of a China-made coronavirus vaccine, as the immunisation drive picks up pace in the country.

After receiving the SinoVac doses, Minister for Planning and NCOC chief, Asad Umar, tweeted that more than 2.3 million doses were administered in the last week at a rate of 332,877 shots per day, which was the "highest so far in any week" in terms of number of vaccine doses administered.

Pakistan's COVID-19 positivity rate has also fallen to 2.61 per cent, a major improvement from 11.63 per cent recorded on April 20. So far, 893,148 people have recovered from the disease in the country.

There are 34,020 active cases. Nearly 13 million vaccine doses have been administered. The target is to inoculate 70 million people with both doses of the vaccine by the end of this year, officials said.