LAHORE: While the Punjab health department has started supplying Pfizer vaccine at vaccination centres established in four big cities including Lahore, the corona positivity rate in the province has declined to 1.71%.

Out of 7,619 Covid-19 tests conducted during the last 24 hours, as many as 131 fresh virus cases and 19 fatalities were reported across the province during the last 24 hours, taking the provincial tally of cases to 344,512 and death toll to 10,586.

With the recovery of 365 more virus patients, the number of recovered patients in the province has reached 323,478. On the other hand, as many as 4,763 coronavirus recoveries were reported across the country during the last 24 hours taking the tally of total recoveries to 887,095 showing the recovery rate of 93.9%.

In Lahore, 67 fresh Covid-19 cases and 6 deaths were reported during the last 24 hours. Health professionals attributed decline in coronavirus cases to vaccination process, which is gaining momentum amid reports of shortage of vaccine at a few centres. However, sources in Primary health department told this scribe that there is no shortage of vaccine and vaccination process will set to resume at its full pace.

During the last 24 hours, six deaths were reported in Lahore, three each in Muzaffargarh and D G Khan, two each in Rawalpindi, Gujranwala and Multan and one in Faisalabad taking the death toll in these cities to 4266, 256, 130, 1507, 418, 828 and 1140, respectively.

As per break-up of corona cases and deaths in major cities of the province, Lahore has so far reported 177577 cases and 4266 deaths, Rawalpindi 26149 cases and 1507 deaths, Faisalabad 21324 cases and 1140 deaths, Multan 17757 cases and 828 deaths, D G Khan 3354 cases and 130 deaths, Bahawalpur 8149 cases and 253 deaths, Gujranwala 8268 cases and 418 deaths, Rahim Yar Khan 6013 cases and 247 deaths, Sargodha 8401 cases and 287 deaths, Sheikhupura 3775 cases and 114 deaths and Sialkot reported 7024 cases and 232 deaths.

A spokesman of the Punjab Specialized Healthcare Department said that pursuant to the decision of NCOC, the department has started supplying Pfizer vaccine at vaccination centres established in four big cities of Punjab including Lahore.

The vaccination centres established in PKLI Lahore, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital Lahore, Allied Hospital Faisalabad, Holy Family Hospital Rawalpindi and Nishter Hospital Multan have started vaccinating citizens with Pfizer vaccine from Thursday.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021