PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recorded nine more deaths from Covid-19 and 414 new infections as the door-to-door vaccination drive began in five districts on Thursday.

Four persons died in Swat and one each in Dera Ismail Khan, Abbottabad, Bajaur, Mardan and Peshawar, according to the health department’s daily report.

The provincial tally of mortalities from the virus has reached 4,444, with 143,213 infections. Of the infected people, 135,846, including 159 in the last 24 hours, have already recovered from the infectious ailment, the report said.

For the first time during the current month, nine persons died in a single day.

Peshawar detected 188 new infections, Abbottabad 43, Nowshera 31, Kohat 26, Mardan 21, Swabi and Haripur 16 each and Swat 12.

The province has a total of 2,923 active Covid-19 patients, including 1,118 in Peshawar, with 59 per cent men and 41 per cent women.

A total of 10,091 tests were conducted during the day with 13.8 per cent positivity rate in Peshawar, 5.4 per cent in Nowshera and five per cent in Mardan.

The overall case fatality rate in the province was 3.1 per cent. There were 660 Covid-19 patients admitted to different hospitals with 22 on ventilators.

Meanwhile, officials said the door-to-door campaign was about to suffer a serious blow after the boycott announced by the lady health workers against non-regularisation of their services. However, after holding a meeting with the high-ups of the health department, they postponed the agitation after assurance about regularisation of their jobs, they said.

Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2021