With 4,449 new cases of the novel coronavirus infection confirmed on Friday, the national COVID-19 caseload has surged to 153,008.

"In 16,864 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests done in the last 24 hours, as many as 4,449 persons were found to have been infected with SARS-CoV-2," informed the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) in its update.

Out of the total infections, 46, 691 are active cases in the country. According to the MoHP, 2,688 persons got over COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.

As many as 17 people have succumbed to the deadly virus in the last 24 hours and with this, he national COVID-19 related death tally has reached 829.