Pakistan's opposition leader tests positive for COVID-19
Islamabad/Xinhua: The leader of the opposition in Pakistan's National Assembly or the lower house of the parliament Shahbaz Sharif and several other politicians have tested positive for COVID-19, local media reported on Thursday.
Shahbaz, who is the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), went to self-quarantine after testing positive for the disease, the party's spokesperson Maryam Aurangzeb said on Thursday.
Shahbaz is also a cancer survivor and is being kept under observation of his doctors. His condition is currently stable and he is showing only mild signs of COVID-19, the spokesperson said.
Condition of the other politicians who have tested positive including former Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal and the ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf 's Khurrum Sher Zaman, is also stable, and all of them have opted for self-isolation at their homes, according to the reports.
On Wednesday, Minister of Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said that 46 politicians in the country have tested positive of the disease so far, and some of them have also lost their lives to the disease.
Owing to the surge in the cases among the parliamentarians, the government approved new rules for the initial session to hold a debate on the forthcoming budget in the lower house.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Advisor to the Prime Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan said that a quarter of the members of the lower house will attend the initial budget session, and only the members who have to make speeches during the budget debate will be present in the house.
The number of COVID-19 patients has witnessed a significant surge in Pakistan recently with 4,000 to 5,000 new cases emerging every day. A total of 119,536 people have tested positive of the disease, and 2,356 have died, according to data updated by the health ministry on Thursday.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
