Another eight lives were lost due to the coronavirus during the past 24 hours in Pakistan, shows the figures released by the National and Command Operation Centre on Friday morning.

Six of these coronavirus patients died in Sindh with one each in Punjab and Islamabad, raising the death toll to 6,552.

As far as the new infections are concerned, another 661 people tested positive on Thursday, which means the overall number of coronavirus cases in the country has now reached 317,595.

Sindh is by far the most affected province where the virus has been found in 139,571 people. The region-wise distribution for the rest of the country is given as:

Punjab 100,330, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 38,219, Islamabad 17,122, Balochistan 15,480, Gilgit-Baltistan 3,893 and Azad Kashmir 2,980.

A total of 302,708 people – 334 of them during the past 24 hours – have so far fully recovered from the coronavirus infection. It means the number of closed cases [deaths + number of recoveries] currently stands at 309,260.

However, there are 8,335 active cases in the country and 784 of them have been hospitalised. Out of those in hospital, 493 are being treated in intensive care due to their critical condition.

Moreover, 67 of the coronavirus patients, who are in intensive care units, have been placed on ventilators.

On the other hand, 33,898 tests were administered across the country as part of the efforts to identify, trace and isolate the infected persons to stop the further spread. These latest tests has increased the overall number to 3,795,287. 

Global toll

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 1,057,084 people since the outbreak emerged late last year, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Thursday. 

More than 36,246,220 cases of coronavirus have been registered worldwide. Of these, at least 25,100,100 are now considered recovered. 

The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections. 

Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.

On Wednesday, 5,815 new deaths and 334,225 new cases were recorded worldwide. 

The countries with the most new deaths were India with 971, followed by the United States with 910 and Brazil with 734. 

The US remains the worst-hit country with 211,844 deaths from 7,551,257 cases. At least 2,999,895 people have been declared recovered in the US. 

The next hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 148,228 deaths from 5,000,694 cases, India with 105,526 deaths from 6,835,655 cases, Mexico with 82,726 deaths from 799,188 cases, and the United Kingdom with 42,515 deaths from 544,275 cases. 

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 100 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Belgium with 87, Bolivia 70, Brazil 70, Spain 70. 

China -- excluding Hong Kong and Macau -- has to date declared 85,500 cases (11 new since wednesday), including 4,634 deaths and 80,666 recoveries. 

Latin America and the Caribbean overall have 362,199 deaths from 9,863,711 cases, Europe 238,573 deaths from 6,091,470 infections, the United States and Canada 221,382 deaths from 7,724,063 cases, Asia 148,209 deaths from 8,856,012 cases, the Middle East 48,631 deaths from 2,136,673 cases, Africa 37,100 deaths from 1,542,067 cases, and Oceania 990 deaths from 32,232 cases. 

As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day's tallies.