UNICEF to provide 1.15 mln corona testing kits to Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The UNICEF has decided to provide coronavirus testing kits to Pakistan as the requirement of the country for the diagnostic kits has increased in the second wave of the disease, ARY News reported on Sunday.

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has decided to provide 1.15 million COVID-19 testing kits to Pakistan after soaring cases of the disease in the second spike of the contagious in country, sources said.

Pakistan will receive the consignment of testing kits from the UN Agency in January 2021, sources further said.

According to sources, the UNICEF will provide coronavirus testing kits to Pakistan with the funding from the World Bank.

The health authorities have made contacts on the world level for procurement of the testing kits, sources said.

“The provinces will inform the federal authorities about their requirement of testing kits, and the consignment supplied by the UNICEF will be distributed among the provinces,” sources said.

“The health authorities will allocate 4,50,000 corona testing kits to Sindh,” the sources added.

As many as 2,615 new cases of the coronavirus were reported across the country during the past 24 hours, pushing the national tally of infections to 457,288.

According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 80 more people succumbed to the infection during this period, taking the death toll from the disease to 9,330.

A total of 37,206 samples were tested in the previous 24 hours, out of which 2,615 turned out to be positive.

The positivity ratio of fresh Covid-19 cases stands at 7.02 per cent, the NCOC said.