Pakistan witnessed a sharp rise in deaths caused by the coronavirus as 15 more patients, 13 of them in Sindh province, lost their lives during the past 24 hours (Thursday), raising the death toll to 6,499.

On the other hand, the virus was detected in another 625 people after which the total number of infections recorded in the country to 313,431, shows the latest figures released by the National Command and Operation Centre on Friday morning.

Amid the rising infection rate in Karachi, parts of the port city are now experiencing micro smart lockdown for two weeks to curtail the coronavirus spread.

In fact, there are reports that the Sindh government is even mulling over the re-imposition of lockdown in the entire city from next week in an attempt to counter the resurgence of the deadly virus.

Sindh has so far recorded 137,467 coronavirus cases. The region-wise distribution for other parts of the country is: Punjab 99,605, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 37,845, Islamabad 16,650, Balochistan 15,302, Gilgit-Baltistan 3,808 and Azad Kashmir 2,754.

On the other hand, 298,055 people have so far fully recovered from the infection. It includes the 558 recoveries reported during the past 24 hours. It means the number of closed cases [death toll + number of people recovering] now stands at 304,554.

However, the country still has 8,877 active cases out of which 480 patients are in critical and being treated in intensive care units of different hospitals. As a whole, a total of 720 people carrying the infection are currently in hospitals across the country.

The past 24 hours also had another 31,697 tests administered in the country. Hence, the number of tests conducted since the coronavirus pandemic outbreak in the country has increased to 3,580,173.