Flight from UAE carries 104 coronavirus patients to Pakistan

The Rawalpindi district administration on Monday said that 104 passengers who were flown in from Abu Dhabi have tested positive for coronavirus.

“Out of 209 passengers, 104 tested positive for COVID-19,” the district administration said, adding that the flight carrying the passengers had arrived in Islamabad on April 28.

Following the SOPs prepared by the government, all the passengers were screened at the airport and were shifted to the quarantine centre at Fatima Jinnah Women University.

With the country having blocked all international commercial flights since mid-March — a ban that’s now set to continue for an indefinite period of time — many of the country’s residents have struggled to find a path back to their homeland, making government repatriation flights a necessity.

On the other hand, Pakistan has reported 22 more fatalities from novel coronavirus as the death toll in the country has reached 471. The nationwide tally of COVID-19 patients jumped to 20,725 while over a thousand cases were reported in 24 hours.

According to the latest figures by the National Command and Operation Center, Sindh remains the worst-hit province by the pandemic followed by Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan.

Till now 7,882 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Sindh, 7,646 in Punjab, 3,129 in KP, 1,218 in Balochistan, 415 in Islamabad, 364 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 71 in Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK).

Earlier in the day, it was reported that three crew members of a special PIA flight from Australia had also tested positive for COVID-19.

The PIA staffers had performed duties on the flight from Melbourne to Lahore.