KARACHI: In its efforts to tackling COVID-19 disease, Sindh has been able to increase its laboratory tests further as the health authorities on May 10 declared that another 4,215 people were tested during the last 24 hours, out of which 709 were found positive for the virus.

Sindh has been able to increase its overall number of COVID-19 tests in recent days but it is still behind the Islamabad and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) with a third position in terms of laboratory tests conducted per million population by provinces and territories of Pakistan.

As of May 10, Sindh has 11,480 confirmed cases out of 91,323 tests in comparison of Punjab having tested 125,988 samples.

Punjab was fifth in the table of provinces and territories in the context of tests conducted per million while Baluchistan was at third position with 14,374 tests.

According to data compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO), Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) topped the list of overall lab test /million population with the figure of 9,347, followed by GB (2,766), Sindh (1,819), Balochistan (1,164), Punjab (1,145), Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa (957), Azad Jammu Kashmir (687), while Pakistan overall covered 1,358 per million population.

As of May 4, ICT had covered 6,331 per million, GB had 2,312, Sindh had 1,338, Punjab had 889, Balochistan had 836, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa had 718 and AJK 551. Pakistan, overall a week back, was testing 1,018 per million.

Keen observers said that number of tests conducted need to be increased further to benefit from the lockdown and various SOPs.

“Our strategy should be testing more and more and then quarantining and treating, which is the only way to fight COVID-19,” an expert observed, adding that at present tests are being used to confirm the obvious cases or more vulnerable population.

In the meantime, another nine COVID-19 patients lost their lives in the province out of which eight, including three women, at Karachi, whose age ranged from 27 to 73 and a 70 year-year-old woman at Hyderabad, taking the tally of fatalities to 189 for the province.

However, official sources did not share the place of deaths, patients’ dates of admissions to hospitals and date of infections.

According to the health department routine summary, 583 new cases were detected in last 24 hours ending at 8 am on May 10, pushing the overall number of infections to 8,634 for the megapolis.

Among other districts it was Hyderabad which reported the maximum 29, followed by Jacobabad (19), Shikarpur (16), Ghotki (12), Sanghar (11), Sukkur (6), Larkana (5), Shaheed Benazirabad (4), Khairpur (3), Jamshoro (3) and Tando Allahyar (2).

As many as 2,081 recovered from the disease, while 1,139 were admitted in hospitals, including 78 in critical condition and 23 on ventilators, and 7,432 were taking the treatment either at their homes or at the designated isolation centres, it was further learnt–PNFS