Amid the rise in the number of coronavirus cases in India and its neighbouring country Pakistan, Canada on Friday announced to extend its ban on incoming passenger flights from these two countries by another 30 days. The ban on incoming flights from India and Pakistan will continue till June 21 as part of a campaign to fight COVID-19, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said on Friday.

The CBC cited a formal Notice to Airmen issued by civil aviation authorities.

Canada last month decided to ban all flights from India and Pakistan for 30 days due to the growing wave of Covid-19 cases in that region.

Last month, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced the ban after India reported a global record of more than 314,000 new infections in 24-hours. Cargo flights from India and Pakistan continued during this period.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Patty Hajdu had said half the people who were testing positive for the coronavirus after arriving in Canada by airplane came from India. Flights from India account for about one-fifth of the country's air traffic.

There's also a disproportionately higher number of positive cases among those travelling on flights from Pakistan, she had said.

“It makes sense to pause travel from that region while our scientists and researchers better understand the variants of interest," Hajdu had said.

Apart from Canada, several other countries have banned or imposed restrictions on flights from and to India due to the recent surge in covid-19 infections in the country.

International flights to India banned till May 31

Meanwhile, India last month had decided to extend the suspension of scheduled international flights till May 31, 2021. The restriction, however, is in not applied to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by DGCA.

Vande Bharat Mission and scheduled flights under the travel bubbles India so far created will continue. Scheduled international flights were suspended on March 23, 2020.

The daily rise in coronavirus cases in India remained below 3 lakh for the fifth consecutive day with 2.59 lakh new cases recorded in a single day, the Union Health Ministry noted on Friday. However, COVID-19 daily recoveries continued to outnumber the daily new cases for the eighth consecutive day, with 3,57,295 patients recuperating in a span of 24 hours.

With the fresh cases, India's total tally of COVID-19 cases climbed to 2,60,31,991. The death toll climbed to 2,91,331 with 4,209 daily deaths, the data updated at 8 am showed.