79pc infections in Pakistan caused by local transmission.

Byline: Ikram Junaidi

ISLAMABAD -- While the number of Covid-19 cases has risen to almost 11,000 in the country with 742 new ones surfacing over the past 24 hours, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) revealed on Thursday that 79 per cent of these cases had been caused by local transmission of novel coronavirus.

As the nature of the infection has undergone this change, the government has decided to introduce track and trace system under which random testing of people will start in a few days.

During the first week of the current month, it was being claimed that almost 90pc patients were travellers from foreign countries and there were fewer cases caused by local transmission of the virus. However, fresh data show that only 21pc cases have been reported in foreign travellers.

Executive Director of the National Institute of Health Maj Gen Prof Aamer Ikram, while talking to Dawn, said that as the whole situation had changed due to local transmission, it had been decided to change the policy to tackle the issue.

'Earlier most of the cases were being reported in those people who were coming from abroad and even cases of local transmission were being reported among those who had come into contact with foreign travellers. However now a majority of cases is being attributed to local transmission of the virus,' he said.

Under track and trace system, random testing will be conducted

Prof Ikram said that a track and trace system was going to be introduced under which random testing of people would be started in a few days.

'Our testing capacity has been increased due to which now we are in a...