KABUL (Pajhwok): The coronavirus positivity rate has jumped to 11 percent from four percent in Afghanistan after 365 new cases were recorded, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) said on Wednesday.
In the third wave of Covid-19 in Afghanistan, positive cases increased to 11 percent in the last few weeks.
GhulamDastagirNazari, MoPH spokesman, told a press conference here that Covid-19 cases had recently increased and it was an alarm, asking people to follow health guidelines for prevention of spread of the virus.
Nazari said 1,993 people were tested for Covid-19 over the last 24 hours and 365 of them tested positive. He added that 10 Covid-19 patients lost their lives during the period.
According to official records of MoPH, over 61,000 people are infected with the virus since its outbreak and 2,664 others lost their lives to the disease.
The MoPH spokesman asked people to follow health guidelines and get anti-Covid-19 vaccine for prevention of the virus spread.
<strong>British, Indian variants of Covid-19:</strong>
Nazari said that 280 cases of mutated Covid-19 cases also known as British variant of the virus, have so far been detected in the country.
However, he said that the ministry did not detect any cases of the Indian variant, but asked the World Health Organization to provide special kits to the ministry to identify whether or not people were infected with the Indian variant of the virus.
The British variant of the virus was for the first time found in Britain from where it spread to regional countries and gradually reached Afghanistan.
<strong>Administering </strong><strong>Covid-19 vaccine:</strong>
Nazari said that over 440,000 civilians had so far received anti-Covid-19 vaccination in the country.
He said that the vaccine reduced chance of infection to the virus by 73 percent, but some people would still contract the virus even after the vaccination.
“The benefit of the vaccine is that if a person is infected after vaccination, it would not affect him or her much, so we can say that the vaccine reduces the chance of death from the virus by 98 percent,” he added.
He said that the Indian vaccine, AstraZeneca which was administered in Afghanistan had no side effects.
On rumors about the risks of the vaccine, he said that the vaccine was verified by the WHO and is administered to more than 400 million people in 23 countries.
He asked all people to get the vaccine and improve their immunity against Covid-19.
Nazari said that the ministry planned to administer the vaccine to 60 percent of the country’s population in two years as donors have provided the fund for the program.
“Unfortunately the world market has faced a shortage of the vaccine, but the ministry still tries to provide the required doses,” he said.
Anti-Covid-19 vaccine is free of cost, therefore government and private health centers have no right to sell it to people, he added.
<strong>Social restrictions:</strong>
Nazari said that they had no in plan for recess of educational institutes and quarantine of cities, but asked people to observe health guidelines such as social distance, using mask, washing hands and disinfecting their living areas.
<strong>Preparations for controlling the third wave of </strong><strong>Covid-19:</strong>
MoPH spokesman said that their teams were tasked in the country’s airports to test those people arriving from abroad to Afghanistan and quarantine anyone in their homes with signs of the virus.
He said that they were providing awareness about health guidelines through telecom companies and mosques.
Mds/ma
