At least 52 deaths and 1,272 new cases have been reported in Pakistan in the last 24 hours due to the coronavirus.

According to the statistics by the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) the total number of deaths from coronavirus in Pakistan has reached 12,488 while the total number of affected people has reached 567,261.

In the country, 530,597 people have recovered from Coronavirus and the number of patients undergoing treatment is 24,176.

The highest number of deaths due to corona was in Punjab where 5,138 people lost their lives while 4,263 in Sindh, 2,015 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 487  in Islamabad, 102 in Gilgit-Baltistan, 199 in Balochistan and In Azad Kashmir, 284 succumbed to the dread virus.

The number of corona cases in Islamabad is 43,029, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 70,306, in Sindh 254,678, in Punjab 165,716, in Balochistan 18,958, in Azad Kashmir 9,629 and in Gilgit-Baltistan 4,945 people have been infected with Coronavirus.

On Wednesday, while delivering a keynote address at the governing council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) virtually; Prime Minister Imran Khan highlighted the need to devise a joint strategy to confront the global economic shocks triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Imran Khan also spoke about the dangers of global hunger and malnutrition affecting hundreds of millions of people, cautioning that the world today faced a looming agricultural crisis.

He said agriculture was central to human survival and 600m people suffered from hunger even as the global population was about to hit eight billion.

The COVID-19  pandemic is likely to push another 100m people into extreme poverty, Imran Khan noted, saying more than 20 countries were food insecure, while the World Food Programme had warned of the danger of famine in some of the poorest countries and conflict zones.