TOBA TEK SINGH: A suspected patient of coronavirus was admitted to the Gojra THQ Hospital here on Sunday.

Doctors told reporters that the 30-year-old man had returned home to Gojra’s village Chak 344-JB from Iran a day ago. His swabs had been collected for testing and he was being kept in an isolation ward of the hospital.

Samples of his swabs had been sent to Islamabad’s National Institute of Health for coronavirus test. He will be kept in the isolation ward till his test reports were received from Islamabad, the doctors said.

PILGRIMS RETURN: Hundreds of Pakistani pilgrims, who returned from Iran and were quarantined at Taftan border, made a brief stopover here on Sunday morning while on their way through the motorway to their hometowns in Gilgit-Baltistan.

They were provided breakfast in all eight buses. District Police Officer Waqar Shoaib Qureshi was present on the occasion at the under-construction rest area near Chak 383-JB Allahar Pind where the pilgrims stayed.

Earlier, Faisalabad Commissioner Ishrat Ali and deputy commissioners of Faisalabad and Toba Tek Singh, Muhammad Ali and Amina Munir, respectively inspected security arrangements of the rest area on M-4 on Saturday night.

On the occasion, Commissioner Ali had told reporters that special sale points had been set up in all four districts of Faisalabad division where face masks were being sold on actual price and a crackdown was under way on those medical store owners who were selling masks at a higher price. He said public places were being washed with water mixed with chlorine.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2020