LONDON: The UK's Imperial College London has lauded Pakistan's efforts for containing coronavirus spread on Thursday. The College's researchers noted that the coronavirus transmission rate in Pakistan has been steadily declining and is now in the 0.52-0.83 range. Overall, the per-capita rate across the country aggregated to only 0.73.

The lower the rate goes, the less the virus would spread, they said, adding that the lowest was in Portugal, while Germany and Nigeria had the second- and third-lowest rates. "Pakistan is ranked fourth in the list."

The report further underlined a positive trend of deaths from coronavirus steadily declining in Pakistan. It may be noted that Pakistan has confirmed 32 deaths in last 24 hours by novel coronavirus as the number of positive cases has surged to 269,191 on Thursday. The nationwide tally of fatalities has jumped to 5,709.