Health experts on Thursday said that the Indian COVID-19 variant is currently circulating across Afghanistan, and called on the public to abide by the health guidelines and respect social distancing to avoid the further spread of the deadly disease.
This comes as Afghanistan recorded another 700 new positive cases of COVID-19 and 19 new deaths in the past 24 hours.
Currently, only one specialized COVID-19 hospital is operating in Kabul, a city with an estimated 6 million people.
According to the health experts, currently, there are about 48 COVID-19 variants circulating across the world.
“The Indian COVID-19 variant is increasing,” said a doctor in Kabul, Ilyas Mashal.
“Most patients come from the bazaars of Kabul and the congested areas,” said Khalilullah, a patient’s visitor.
“This virus has spread very quickly and all signs that exist in (the original) coronavirus exist with this one, like pain all over the body,” said Tariq Ahmad Akbari, the head of the Afghan-Japan Hospital.
The Afghan Ministry of Public Health has said that it plans to establish two new COVID-19 hospitals in Kabul.
Latest COVID-19 figures in Afghanistan:
The Ministry of Public Health on Thursday reported 764 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 3,280 samples tested in the last 24 hours.
The ministry also reported 12 deaths and 251 recoveries from COVID-19 in the same period.
The new cases were reported in Kabul (154), Herat (18), Kandahar (148), Balkh (42), Nangarhar (31), Takhar (39), Baghlan (7), Kunduz (57), Nimruz (16), Paktia (29), Faryab (2), Helmand (1), Maidan Wardak (51), Badakhshan (28), Logar (65), Kunar (5), Laghman (21), Panjshir (31), Zabul (7), Paktika (11) and Nuristan (1) provinces.
Deaths were reported in Kabul (3), Kandahar (1), Balkh (1), Takhar (1), Nimruz (1), Paktia (1), Logar (1), Laghman (1) and Uruzgan (1) provinces.
The ministry reported that the cumulative total of known COVID-19 cases is 69,130, the total number of reported deaths is 2,881, and the total number of recoveries is 56,962.
So far, 459,050 samples have been tested in government centers and there are 9,287 known active COVID-19 cases in the country, data by the ministry indicates.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the number of deaths from COVID-19 globally is more than 3,498,862 and the number of known global coronavirus cases is 168,427,774.