Four more legislators, dozens of workers contract coronavirus

ISLAMABAD: Four more legislators in the National Assembly and Senate have contracted coronavirus as the number of infections in the Parliament House was also rising beside a steep increase in cases across the country, ARY News reported on Wednesday.

Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) senior leader Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Member of National Assembly (MNA) Farrukh Habib, Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) legislator in NA Usama Qadri and Senator Sana Jamali from Balochistan have been detected with coronavirus today.

Moreover, 22 more workers of the Parliament’s Secretariat were infected with the virus, taking the tally of the Parliament House’s employees to more than 80.

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According to a report compiled by the National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad, COVID-19 infections were confirmed in 22 more employees of the secretariat, as well as in three NA lawmakers including Rasheed Ahmad Khan, Chela Ram Kewlani and Dr Suresh Kumar. Chela Ram Kewlani is also the head of the Minorities Commission.

The confirmation was made after NIH received detection test results of 71 samples of the employees.

After witnessing the new cases, the administration of the Parliament’s dispensary warned the Senate Secretariat regarding the disastrous consequences of the spread of COVID-19 among legislators and employees.

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The administration asked the higher authorities to pay attention to the spread of infections. In a letter, the administration detailed that 67 persons were tested positive for COVID-19 out of 382 tests conducted in the parliament and the rate of positive cases stood at 17 per cent.

Earlier, six legislators of NA and Senate were found infected with COVID-19 including Rai Muhammad Murtaza, Sabeen Rizvi, Abdul Aziz Khan, Muhammad Ali, Bilal Khan and Shah Khalid Khan.

COVID-19 statistics

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Pakistan jumped to 113,702 after detection of record 5,328 new infections in the last 24 hours.

Read: Members sans corona test won’t attend NA budget session: Naveed Qamar

According to the latest data released by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), the death toll from COVID-19 is currently recorded at 2,255 with 83 more virus-related deaths reported in the past 24 hours

According to NCOC, 41,303 cases have been detected in Sindh, 43,460 in Punjab, 14,527 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 7,031 in Balochistan, 5,963 in Islamabad, 444 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and 974 in Gilgit Baltistan.

So far 36,308 patients have recovered from coronavirus in the country, while 75,139 are still fighting the deadly virus.

Pakistan carried out 23,799 tests to detect coronavirus in the last 24 hours taking the overall number of the tests in the country to 754,252.