As many as 18 more people have died from the coronavirus in the country while 3554 others tested positive for the disease in the last 24 hours. 

With this, the death toll from the pandemic has risen to 8,738 while the tally of infections has surged to 577,241, said the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in a press release on Tuesday (March 23, 2021). 

The recovery count rose to 5,25,994 after another 1835 patients were discharged from the hospitals during the period, said the release. 

A total of 25,954 samples were tested at 219 authorized laboratories across the country during the time, it added. 

The first coronavirus death was reported in the country on March 18, ten days after the detection of the first COVID-19 cases. 

China was the world’s first country which on January 11, 2020, reported the first death from the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, the capital of Central China’s Hubei province.  As of this afternoon, a total of 2,736,721 people have died so far from the COVID-19 outbreak and there are currently 124,338,690 confirmed cases in 219 countries and territories, according to Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics.