Pakistan ranks fourth in terms of person-to-person coronavirus transmission: Imperial College

LONDON/KARACHI: Pakistan ranks fourth around the world in terms of coronavirus transmission, the UK's Imperial College London said in a report issued Wednesday on deaths from the disease in the country.

The College's researchers noted that the coronavirus transmission rate in Pakistan has been steadily declining and is now in the 0.52-0.83 range. Overall, the per-capita rate across the country aggregated to only 0.73.

The lower the rate goes, the less the virus would spread, they said, adding that the lowest was in Portugal, while GermanyandNigeria had the second- and third-lowest rates.

The report further underlined a positive trend of deaths from coronavirus steadily declining in Pakistan.

In the past week, 371 people had succumbed to the coronavirus, the report said, adding that the researchers hoped for the deaths to go even lower in the week starting July 21.

Researchers at the Imperial College London said they hopedeaths remain between 247-329 in the upcoming week.

So far, Pakistan has had close to 269,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, whereas 5,701 people have succumbed to the respiratory disease.