Karachi, Mar 21 (IANS): The Covid-19 positivity rate in Karachi has reached 28.30 per cent, a health authority official said after 30 out of 106 people screened for the viral infection tested positive, as per media reports.

Meanwhile, the countrywide positivity rate stood at only 3 per cent when three out of 100 individuals tested positive for the pandemic, The News reported.

"Covid-19 positivity rate has started rising in the country since 100 individuals tested positive during the last 24 hours after as many as 3,147 tests were conducted across the country registering 3.18 per cent Covid-19 positivity rate," an official of the National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad told The News.

According to statistics shared by the NIH Islamabad, the positivity rate in three major cities — Karachi, Islamabad and Peshawar — stood over 10 per cent. The positivity rate jumped to 12.20 per cent in Islamabad, where 25 people tested positive in 205 tests conducted for detecting the virus while Peshawar saw a 14.29 per cent positivity rate with 14 persons testing positive as against 94 tests.

On the other hand, the positivity rate in Lahore remained at 4.14 per cent with 18 new cases in 435 tests, The News reported.

Commenting on the situation, an official of the NIH said that Covid 19 cases were on the rise due to a sub-variant of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2.

He added that the spread of the virus was very high but the hospitalisation rate was still very low in the country since only 18 people were under treatment in the ICUs and high dependency units (HDUs) in the country.

He maintained that people showing symptoms of the virus were being screened only, which is why the positivity rate was very high. He said that the government has asked the provinces and centres to increase the number of tests to figure out the actual situation, The News reported.