ISLAMABAD : Pakistan continues to record a decline in COVID-19-related deaths and new cases, as the country recorded 1.69% positivity rate over the past 24 hours.

According to data released by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 27 more people succumbed to the disease during this period, taking the nationwide death toll to 22,034.

Pakistan recorded COVID-19 positivity rate of 1.69 per cent as of the total 39,017 samples tested for the presence of the infection, 663 were declared positive. This brings the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 949,784.

With 1,204 people getting their health back during the past 24 hours, the overall number of the recovered stands at 894,352. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the country has carried out 14,187,441 tests to diagnose the deadly disease.

GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology said on Monday final results from a late-stage study of their monoclonal antibody confirmed it significantly reduced hospitalization and death among high-risk COVID-19 patients when given early in the disease.

The treatment, sotrovimab, received an emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May, while the European Union’s drug regulator has also backed it. read more

The drugmakers also said on Monday the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has recommended sotrovimab to treat high-risk, non-hospitalized patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19.