PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government developed a high dependency unit and two intensive care units at Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar for critically-ill coronavirus patients as number of cases reached 31 in the province with four reported during the last 24 hours on Sunday.

Adviser to Chief Minister on Information Ajmal Khan Wazir told a news conference that 170 suspected cases of coronavirus had been reported in the province.

He said that three of the newly-infected people belonged to Mardan who got infection by staying close to a 45-year-old man with travel history to Saudi Arabia, who died of Covid-19 few days ago.

Two patients were confirmed in Peshawar, he said. All have been quarantined. The province had recorded three of the four countrywide deaths as a woman pilgrim was received dead in Dera Ismail Khan, said Mr Wazir.

He said that 1,299 doctors had been recruited to provide health services to people.

CM’s adviser says number of cases in KP reaches 31

Meanwhile, the government has authorised Mohammad Zubair Khan, secretary of energy and power department, to support health secretary in emergency and administrative measures being undertaken by the task force headed by Chief Minister Mahmood Khan.

Waqar Ali Khan, a BPS-18 officer, has been deputed for three months to a cell established at Prime Minister’s Office for coordination on decisions made at the federal and provincial level with regard to Covid-19. Chief Secretary Dr Kazim Niaz issued these notifications on Sunday.

A command and control centre has also been established to look after situation across the province round-the-clock.

Officials said that the province faced imminent threat and therefore the chief secretary was visiting quarantine centres and wanted the hospitals, especially LRH, the first declared facility for serious patients, to enhance their capacity to provide critical care to patients in case of outbreak.

They said that back-to-back cases with local origin of virus also led to escalation work for prevention and treatment of patients infected with the virus. The seriously-ill patients required top facilities including oxygen and monitors, they said.

Officials said that elderly infected people with underlying diseases such as asthma, diabetes, chest infections, etc would need ICU.

Dr Khalid Masud, the director of Lady Reading Hospital, told Dawn that they had established a dedicated 16-bed ICU for coronavirus patients and the general patients were shifted to new building. “The government has been working to break chain of virus and ensure treatment of critical patients, therefore, we have completed our preparations,” he added.

Dr Khalid said that they deployed two teams for chest and ICU care of corona patients under senior consultants.

A daily situation reports by health department said that a total 616 persons were quarantined in five districts. Of the 211 suspected patients in the province, 73 were negative and results of 64 were awaited with 31 confirmed cases and three deaths of the nationwide four, it added.

Our correspondent from Upper Dir adds: Three suspected cases of coronavirus have been reported in Brawal area of the district.

The district administration has established three quarantine centres and five isolation centres in Upper Dir. The blood samples of the suspected patients, admitted to the isolation centre in Brawal, have been sent to Peshawar by the health department for laboratory test.

Sources said that the suspected patients recently returned from Saudi Arabia.

Our correspondent from Bajaur adds: The authorities on Sunday temporarily quarantined two suspected coronavirus patients in the tribal district.

Sources said that both the suspected patients were entering the district when a joint team of the district administration and health department traced them during a routine screening at Toor Ghondi.

They said that suspected patients, who apparently had no symptoms of the infection, were sent immediately to a quarantine centre.

However, Dr Fazal Rahman, the focal person for coronavirus in the district, when contacted, said that both the suspected persons were later discharged as no symptoms of infection were found in them.

He clarified that both they were not quarantined. “We had planned to quarantine them, but later we changed our plan as no symptoms of coronavirus were found in them,” he said. He said that both the persons were suffering from simple fever.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2020