Islamabad: The US on Friday announced that it will provide Pakistan $1 million under the USAID programme to help improve monitoring and rapid response against the novel coronavirus outbreak in the South Asian country. Senior US diplomat Alice Wells made the announcement on Twitter, reports The Express Tribune.

"The US-Pakistan government partnership is helping fight COVID-19. The US government is responding to Covid-19 in Pakistan with initial $1 million funding to bolster monitoring and rapid response."

The US diplomat further stated that there were over a hundred Pakistani graduates in the lab training of Centres for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention, investigating coronavirus cases in Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Pakistan have increased to 454 after Balochistan, Punjab, Sindh, Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa announced an increase in their provincial tallies. Pakistan has also reported two deaths, both in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.