Pakistan's first coronavirus patient discharged from hospital after full recovery

KARACHI

: The first person to have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Pakistan has been discharged from a private hospital here after making a full recovery, a health official said on Saturday.



The

patient

, whose identity has been kept under wraps, was discharged after a third test for the virus came negative on Saturday, a spokesperson for the Sindh Health Department said.

She said the patient, who was in isolation and under treatment for the last 10 days, had fully recovered.

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"He was discharged after three tests carried out on him, the latest being on Saturday, came out negative," the official said.

Pakistan has reported six cases of the deadly coronavirus, including three in its biggest city of Karachi.

The patient discharged also belongs to Karachi and was diagnosed with the virus soon after he returned home from

Iran

.

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Meanwhile, the Pakistan government allowed trade activities to resume at the Taftan border with Iran in Baluchistan province after keeping it closed for 14 days due to the outbreak of the virus in the neighbouring country where around 145 people have died from the disease.

A day earlier, the Geo News reported that the people quarantined at Pakistan House in Taftan had been shifted to another place due to limited space there.

Quoting Customs officials, the report said that more than 3,000 people were currently kept at two quarantine centres at Taftan border after they underwent screening on entering Pakistan from Iran.

So far, no coronavirus related death has been reported in Pakistan.

Sindh and Balochistan provinces have already closed their schools and colleges after the deadly virus surfaced in the country.

The novel virus that first originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year has claimed over 3,500 lives and infected more than 100,000 across 94 nations and territories.

The World Health Organisation last week raised the global virus risk to maximum level after the outbreak spread to sub-Saharan Africa and stock markets around the world plummeted.