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Pakistan announces first two cases of new coronavirus

2020-02-26T18:51:13.051Z



The government of Pakistan, a country bordering both China and Iran, where the deaths from the new coronavirus are the most numerous in the world, announced on Wednesday 26 February its first two cases.

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“I can confirm the first two cases of coronavirus in Pakistan. Both cases are managed according to standard clinical protocols and both are stable, " said Zafar Mirza, public health advisor to Prime Minister Imran Khan, on Twitter.

"No need to panic, things are under control," he continued, without giving further details about the two people infected.

One of the patients, a 22-year-old student with "a history of trips to Iran and China" , returned from a stay in Iran between February 6 and 20, according to a report by the Sindh health services, province of southern Pakistan where Karachi is the capital and from which it originates. According to this very detailed document, this trip, which he had made with 28 other people, had taken him to Qom, Machhad and Tehran, three Iranian cities where cases of Covid-19 have been reported. "Placed in isolation" , his " close contacts are under observation," say the Sindh health services. The identity of the second infected person and their journey are not yet known.

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Some 270 Pakistanis returning from a pilgrimage to Iran, some of whom had been to Qom, the holy city of Shiism where the first Covid-19 infections were reported in the Islamic Republic, were placed in quarantine at Taftan, a post border with Balochistan, an underdeveloped and highly unstable province in southwest Pakistan. While Pakistan closed its border with Iran on Sunday, AFP saw Tuesday long lines of trucks banned from entry for four days.

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At least 19 people have died for 139 infected in Iran, including the Deputy Minister of Health. Iran is the second country in the world for the number of deaths linked to the new coronavirus after China, another neighbor of Pakistan, where the epidemic has left more than 2,700 dead and some 78,000 infected since its appearance in December.

The fear of massive contamination is real in Pakistan, whose health system is failing. Pakistan and Iran also share more than 900 km of a notoriously porous border. Tehran is also accused of having hidden the scale of the epidemic, which the Iranian authorities deny. According to Ziaullah Langove, the Minister of the Interior of Balochistan, there are nearly 10,000 Pakistanis in Iran, mainly students and pilgrims. Iranian authorities plan to send them home in small groups, he said.

»See also - coronavirus: destocking of 15 million anti-projection masks

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-02-26

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