Punjab Health Minister Dr. Yasmin Rashid said on Monday that about 700 patients have so far recovered from COVID-19 at different hospitals across the province.

"We have so far conducted around 58,000 tests in the province of Punjab and testing facilities are being enhanced in the province," she said, adding: "We have 30,000 bed facilities at different quarantines, and private hospitals have also been equipped to deal with corona cases."

In a briefing, Dr. Yasmin Rashid requested the people to support government efforts by complying with the lockdown and staying indoors. She said the return of patients to their homes in good numbers is an encouraging development.

On the other hand, Parliamentary Secretary for Health Dr. Nausheen Hamid said the government was striving hard to increase the testing capacity of suspected cases of coronavirus to 20,000 per day from the end of April as currently 34 testing laboratories were fully functional across the country.

Dr Nausheen Hamid said the Ministry of Health in collaboration with National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is framing policy to ensure establishment of diagnostic labs at divisional level.

She added that over 100,000 testing kits are now available which would be increased in coming days. She said that locally manufactured ventilators would become functional within weeks.