14 health workers contract COVID-19, one doctor dies in 24 hours

ISLAMABAD: In last 24 hours 14 healthcare workers have contracted coronavirus and a doctor died of the disease, ARY News reported on Tuesday.

Those contracted COVID-19 in a day included eight doctors, one nurse and five other members of the healthcare staff, sources said.

As many as 157 healthcare workers have lost their lives while battling the deadly outbreak of COVID-19 in the country so far, sources said.

According to sources at Ministry of National Health, so far 16,145 healthcare workers have contracted the coronavirus, including 9,639 doctors, 2,314 nurses and 4,192 other staff of hospitals.

Overall 15,441 healthcare workers have recovered from the virus while 531 are under isolation after testing positive for COVID-19 at homes and 16 under treatment at hospitals, sources said.

Most of the healthcare workers infected or died by the virus disease belong to Sindh. As per the province-wise breakup, in Sindh, 5,716 health workers have been infected by coronavirus while 55 died in the disease. In Punjab, 3,377 healthcare workers contracted the coronavirus and 28 of them died. In KP, 3,888 healthcare workers were diagnosed with the Covid-19 and 42 of them died.

In Islamabad, 1,459 healthcare workers contracted the coronavirus and 11 of them died. In Balochistan and Azad Kashmir, 778 and 705 healthcare workers contracted the virus respectively and nine died in each region. While in Gilgit-Baltistan, 222 healthcare workers contracted coronavirus and three of them died, according to the sources.

According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) data, 3,084 new infections emerged when 38,883 samples were tested during the last 24 hours. The positivity rate of new cases was recorded at 7.93%, the NCOC said.

During the past 24 hours, as many as 113 people lost their lives to the pandemic, taking the overall death toll to 19,106.