Pakistan has reported another fatality on the day the World Health Organisation ended the global emergency triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pakistan has took in 29 more coronavirus infections with one fatality during the last 24 hours (Friday), showed the data released by the National Institute of Health (NIH) on Saturday morning, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

According to the NIH data, the death toll in the country now rose to 30,658 whereas the number of total infections now increased to 1,580,859 after adding the fresh 29 cases.

https://twitter.com/NIH_Pakistan/status/1654663230634201090

During the last 24 hours (Friday), 3,269 tests were conducted throughout Pakistan whereas the positivity ratio soared to 0.89%. The number of patients in critical care stood at nine.

Covid no longer a global health emergency: WHO

The Covid-19 pandemic, which killed millions of people and wreaked economic and social havoc, no longer constitutes a global health emergency, the WHO said Friday, warning that the threat remained.

It is "with great hope that I declare Covid-19 over as a global health emergency", World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

The move came after the WHO's independent emergency committee on the Covid crisis agreed it no longer merited the organisation's highest alert level and "advised that it is time to transition to long-term management of the COVID-19 pandemic".

But the danger was not over, according to Tedros, who estimated Covid had killed "at least 20 million" people -- about three times the nearly seven million deaths officially recorded.

"This virus is here to stay. It is still killing, and it's still changing," he said.

"The worst thing any country could do now is to use this news as a reason to let down its guard, to dismantle the systems it has built, or to send the message to its people that Covid-19 is nothing to worry about."

 

With inputs from AFP.