MUZAFFARABAD: With the appearance of 12 more positive cases over the past 24 hours, the number of confirmed Covid-19 patients in Azad Jammu and Kashmir swelled to 105, a minister said on Thursday.

Five of the new patients were the family members of a medical store owner living in Plate neighbourhood of Muzaffarabad who had himself tested positive on Wednesday, said Dr Mustafa Bashir Abbasi, minister for information technology.

Another five were from the family of an elderly Gujranwala resident who had died of Covid-19 in Muzaffarabad a few days ago, he said.

The minister said the deceased person’s son, working with a federal institution in Muzaffarabad, had secretly managed entry in AJK of his ailing father more than a week ago.

Three days after his arrival here, he tested positive and was hospitalised where he died after another three days, marking the first Covid-19 related death in AJK.

Elsewhere, one person each who had travelled from Gujranwala and Gujrat had tested positive in Kotli and Mirpur, respectively.

On Wednesday, a tailor working in Madina Market Muzaffarabad, had also tested positive during a random sampling, creating scare in the busiest shoppinghub of the AJK capital and triggering calls from residents for re-enforcement of total lockdown.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2020