A senior paediatrician, Professor Dr Salahuddin Shaikh, lost his battle with Covid-19 at a Karachi hospital on Sunday amid a steep rise of Omicron variant infections in the megacity. The senior doctor was under treatment at a private hospital of Karachi but he could not survive.

Dr Salahuddin Shaikh was a highly professional specialist of pediatrics, practicing in Clifton area of Karachi. The deadly coronavirus continued to haunt the medics who are providing care and cure to the Covid-19 patients.

Pertinent to note that the fifth wave of Covid-19 is taking Karachi by storm as the positivity ratio in the port city has surged to over 39 percent. The Covid positivity ratio on Sunday jumped near to 40 percent in Karachi, a day after the provincial government decided against imposing lockdown and instead asked citizens to adopt precautionary measures and wear facemasks in light of Omicron variant.

According to the figures shared by the Sindh health department, as many as 2,424 cases of Covid-19 were reported from Karachi, bringing the positivity ratio to 39.39 percent.

As the fifth wave of Covid-19 intensified, a significant rise in the coronavirus positivity rate observed in the last 24 hours across the country as the ratio shot up to 8.71 per cent, according to the National Command and Operation Centre data.

At least 4,340 new infections reported across the country taking the total number of the positive cases to at least 1.3 million since the start of the pandemic, while the total recoveries stood at more than 1.2 million.

During the last 24 hours, seven people died of Covid-19 across the country, while at least 781 patients affected by the virus are on critical care, according to the NCOC data.