LAHORE: Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid has been isolated again at her home after she tested positive for the second time during the last three weeks or so.

Dr Rashid had some specific Covid-19 symptoms, including fever and flu, after which her samples were drawn that tested positive, an official told Dawn.

Earlier, he said, the minister had tested positive for the virus some 15 days back and was isolated at home till complete recovery.

He said Dr Rashid had joined her office a couple of days back after completing the isolation period.

The test reports issued by the primary and secondary health department lab suspected that she was re-infected.

Cases slightly decline in Punjab

However, some medical and health experts doubted the quality of her both test reports, advising the minister to have a fresh test to ascertain whether she was reinfected, the official said.

Meanwhile, as per the health department figures, 1,534 new Covid cases were reported during the last 24 hours in Punjab, taking the total number to 467,744.

The data showed a brief decline in the number of new cases in the province, as evident from the infectivity rate which also dropped.

The department says the virus positivity rate is 11.3 in Lahore, that was over 15 per cent in the city some three days back. Similarly, the infectivity rate also declined to 13.3 in Rawalpindi, where it had reached 17pc, recently.

Of the new positive cases, 947 were reported in Lahore, while the number was 350 in Rawalpindi.

The data shows only two patients died of the virus in Punjab during the last 24 hours and both were from Rawalpindi.

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2022