Ottawa, Sep 4 (IANS): Nearly 1,000 flights in Canada have carried at least one coronavirus-positive passenger since February, according to local media.

More than 370 domestic flights and nearly 600 international flights had at least one passenger who tested positive for the virus, Xinhua news agency quoted CTV as saying in a report on Thursday.

From February 4 to August 24 this year, 973 flights in total flew into or within Canada with infected passengers on board.

The last flight known to carry a Covid-19 case arrived in Toronto on Sunday from Edmonton in Alberta province.

Also on Thursday, Transport Minister Marc Garneau said the government is taking a very serious and layered approach to minimize the risk of passengers bringing the novel coronavirus into Canada.

"Those measures include, when somebody is traveling from abroad ... screening questions, temperature measurements, the fact that they must wear masks," Garneau said.

"All of those are measures that are designed to minimize the possibility of bringing anybody who's infected into the country and then transmitting it while they're on the aircraft," the Minister added.

A total of 129,923 Covid-19 cases have been reported nationwide with 9,135 deaths, the Public Health Agency of Canada said.

Labs across Canada tested a daily average of 46,000 people over the past week with 0.9 per cent of them testing positive.

A daily average of 501 new cases have been reported during the last seven days, said the agency.