PESHAWAR: Covid-19 claimed 25 more lives and infected 590 people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the health department is struggling to enhance contact tracing of the positive patients due to strike by members of the rapid response team over nonpayment of salaries.

Officials said the department was going to resolve the payment issue of the workers of rapid response team within a week to expedite the contact tracing of the confirmed patients.

The workers, who would visit the houses of confirmed patients to collect swabs from their nearest contacts, haven’t received their salaries for the past few months.

A health department report said that the province mortalities reached 5,200 and incidence 167,154 since the onset of the pandemic early last year. Of the infected patients, 153,933 (92 per cent), including 314 in last 24 hours, have recovered, it said.

The province has a total of 8,021 active coronavirus patients. The department conducted 11,379 tests of suspected patients and overall positivity was recorded at six per cent, it said.

Positivity rate swelled to 12.6 per cent from 11.5 per cent recorded a day before, as 13 persons passed away in Peshawar. Swabi, where three persons succumbed to the virus, positivity was reported at 12.9 per cent, up from 10.4 per cent a day before. Abbottabad reported three deaths, while Nowshera recorded 7.2 per cent positivity.

Two persons died in Mardan where infectivity level dropped to 9.3 per cent from 10.5 per cent on Wednesday.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2021