Kashgar, Oct 28 — The Kashgar Prefecture in southwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has completed COVID-19 tests for all 4.74 million residents in the region as of Tuesday afternoon, according to local health authorities.
A total of 183 people in the region have tested positive, while the rest of the residents tested negative for COVID-19.
The Kashgar Prefecture reported five new confirmed cases and 19 asymptomatic COVID-19 cases on Tuesday.
The local health authorities said an epidemiological survey for virus tracing is still underway, and the medical expert team has so far ruled out a connection between Kashgar and the epidemic in Urumqi in July.
On October 24, a 17-year-old female villager from Kashgar’s Shufu County was confirmed as an asymptomatic carrier of the virus during routine nucleic acid testing.
The positive test led to mass testing across the prefecture, and over 130 people tested positive the following day, all related to a local factory where the parents of the female villager work.