Pakistan has confirmed 1,425 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, leading the country's tally to cross the 1-million mark, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) said Friday morning.
It was the first time when the country reported less than 2,000 new cases in a day after almost one week's time, reports Xinhua citing the NCOC's data.
With the new patients, the country's number of overall confirmed cases rose to 1,000,034, the NCOC, the department leading Pakistan's campaign against the pandemic, said.
The NCOC said that the country's southern Sindh province has been the worst hit, with a total of 362,182 confirmed cases, followed by eastern Punjab province where the disease was detected in 351,707 people.
A total of 22,939 people died of the disease nationwide, including 11 patients who died over the last 24 hours, the NCOC said, adding that 2,525 people are in critical condition.
The country currently has 53,623 active cases while 923,472 others have recovered from the disease.
The country is currently facing the challenge of the surging fourth wave of infections with the Delta variant of the virus spreading across all provinces.
According to a recently conducted survey in the southern port city of Karachi, almost 100 percent of new COVID-19 cases being detected in the city are of the Delta variant infection.
Amid the rising cases, the government has accelerated its vaccination drive to protect the maximum number of people from the fast-spreading virus, besides urging people to follow the guidelines of social distancing and personal hygiene to protect themselves and others from getting infected.