-First confirmed Coronavirus case reported in GB
-Balochistan reports 2nd case
-Countrywide tally exceeds 20
-Visa section of Pakistan Embassy in Kabul closed
By Uzma Zafar
ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani died of the novel coronavirus in Italy, the foreign office confirmed Wednesday.
The Pakistani national passed away in Brescia, about a 100 kilometres from Milan, the spokesperson added.
The Pakistani Consulate in Milan was in touch with the concerned family, as well as the authorities in Italy, the spokesperson said.
Italy has reported 10,149 cases, with 631 deaths and 877 in serious condition.
Millions of Italians woke to deserted streets and shuttered shops after officials imposed a national lock-down, while the government has pledged $28 billion to fight the virus.
Italy’s lock-down unprecedented in western Europe stops people from moving around or leaving the country unless they have a valid medical, family or work reason.
Foreigners are still allowed to leave many already have and the last stragglers were racing to catch flights after a slew of cancellations.
“We have people saying they will put us on a flight back,” Mina, a 58-year-old Indian national, told AFP next tAo Rome’s deserted Colosseum, saying she and her family were “waiting for a call”.
The country’s Prime
Minister Giuseppe Conte had extended measures to tackle the new coronavirus across the whole country, telling people to “stay at home” and banning public gathering as well as Serie A football matches. The unprecedented measures covering the entire Mediterranean nation of more than 60 million people came into force after Italy reported 97 more deaths that took its toll to 463.
“I am going to sign a decree that can be summarised as follows: I stay at home,” Conte announced in a dramatic evening television address. “The whole of Italy will become a protected zone,” he said. Foreign Office (FO) has confirmed the death of a Pakistani national from coronavirus in Italy who was residing in Milan city for many years, media reported on Wednesday.
The FO spokesperson said in a statement a Pakistani national infected with COVID-19 died in Italy’s Milan city. However, no further detail is given so far. It added that the diplomatic officials are in contact with the Italian government to bringing back the dead body of the national to the country. It is the first death of a Pakistani national from the virus reported outside the country.
Earlier in the day, just hours after the dramatic new restrictions came into force, Italy’s health authorities announced the death toll had jumped by 168 to 631, the largest rise in absolute numbers since the contagion came to light on February 21.
Shops and restaurants closed, hundreds of flights were canceled and streets emptied across Italy on Tuesday, the first day of an unprecedented, nationwide lockdown imposed to slow Europe’s worst outbreak of coronavirus.
The total number of confirmed cases rose at a much slower rate than recently seen, hitting 10,149 against a previous 9,172, but officials warned that the region at the epicenter, Lombardy, had provided incomplete data.
The government has told all Italians to stay at home and avoid non-essential travel until April 3, radically widening steps already taken in much of the wealthy north, which is the epicenter of the spreading contagion. In Pakistan, a new case of coronavirus reported in Gilgit-Baltistan on Wednesday, raising Pakistan’s tally of total confirmed cases to 20.
According to Gilgit Baltistan government spokesperson, a 14-year-old boy was diagnosed with novel coronavirus at a City Hospital in Skardu. The patient hails from Skardu. The second coronavirus case of Gilgit-Baltistan emerged on Wednesday, raising Pakistan’s tally of total confirmed cases to 20. The 14-year-old boy, a resident of Skardu, was held at an isolation centre where he tested positive for the mysterious viral pneumonia-like disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
So far 20 Pakistanis have been tested positive for COVID-19 with 15 of them belonging to Sindh, four in Gilgit-Baltistan now and one in Balochistan. The second coronavirus case of Gilgit-Baltistan reported on Wednesday, raising Pakistan’s tally of total confirmed cases to 20, media reported.
According to Gilgit Baltistan government spokesperson, a 14-year-old boy was diagnosed with novel coronavirus at a City Hospital in Skardu. The patient hails from Skardu.
On Tuesday, a 12-year-old boy was diagnosed with novel coronavirus at a Quetta hospital. Dr Shams, a focal person for the isolation ward, said the boy who arrived in Quetta from Iran via Taftan border last night tested positive for the disease at the Fatima Jinnah Hospital.
Two more confirmed cases of novel coronavirus (Covid-19) surfaced in Sindh on the same day. A spokesperson for the Sindh Health Department said that one confirmed case of coronavirus has been reported in Hyderabad while the other case emerged in the provincial capital. The person who tested positive for the disease in Hyderabad had flown back from Syria via Doha, while the Karachi coronavirus patient had returned from Dubai. Sindh government on Wednesday has decided to monitor inter-provincial borders amid apprehensions about spread of novel coronavirus. The provincial government departments will monitor the movement of people arriving in Sindh from other provinces, government sources said.
