Pakistan's Covid-19 positivity rate dips to lowest level since March 2020

Pakistan's coronavirus positivity rate has dropped below one per cent for the first time since March 2000, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

The country recorded 400 new cases in the last 24 hours, registering a positivity rate of 0.94 per cent, the ministry said.

It is for the first time that the positivity rate has dropped below 1 per cent since the government started tracking the spread of the disease in March 2020, it said.

Pakistan detected its first coronavirus case on Feb 26 last year and soon instituted a system to keep a track of the new cases along with other essential data.

The data maintained by the health ministry showed that so far 1,277,560 confirmed cases and 28,558 deaths, including 11 fatalities in the last 24 hours, have been reported in the country. While 1,226,157 people have fully recovered, 1,206 are in critical care at various hospitals.

Pakistan has fully vaccinated more than 45 million people and partly vaccinated more than 75.27 million people. The improvement in the pandemic situation coincided with the British government saying that it would recognise Sinovac and Sinopharm jab as an approved Covid-19 vaccine for inbound travel from November 22.

British High Commissioner to Pakistan Christian Turner unveiled the UK government's decision in a tweet, as major relief to Pakistan which relied on the two Chinese vaccines to vaccinate its people against the disease.

The UK authorities have also added India-made Covaxin to its approved vaccine list, but it has not been used in Pakistan.