PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa became the first province of the country to record more than 100 confirmed deaths of Covid-19 patients with six new fatalities it recorded on Monday.

The province has now 104 deaths due to Covid-19, the highest number recorded by any province in the country. Of the fresh deaths, four belonged to Peshawar and one each to Malakand and Bajaur districts, a daily situation report, released by health department, said.

The report said that number of confirmed patients in the province rose to 1,984 with 120 new cases during the last 24 hours.

Peshawar, which has 5.25per cent case fatality rate (CFR) in the province, accounted for 56 deaths due to coronavirus.

In Swat, 12 persons have passed away so far due to the virus.

Number of patients reaches 1,984 with 120 new cases

Malakand has recorded three deaths so far while Bajaur tribal district has recorded the first casualty of the pandemic.

The province’s CFR from the epidemic now stands at 5.4 per cent, the highest by any province in the country.

The nationwide CFR is 2.11 per cent. Peshawar has 8.93per cent CFR, the highest by any district in the country.

Except Kohistan Lower and Kolai Palas, all the districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have become endemic for Covid-19, with Peshawar leading with 627 cases, followed by Swat with 157 cases, Mardan 136, Buner 102, Dir Upper 79, Mansehra 75, Malakand 69, Kohat 58, Abbottabad 50 and Nowshera and Charsadda each with 49 cases.

According to the report, 18 patients have recovered from Covid-19 during the last 24 hours, taking count of the healed patients from the virus to 533 so far in the province.

It said that 760 active patients were quarantined and 455 were admitted to various hospitals of the province, among them 405 were in stable condition and 40 were critical, including 10 on ventilator.

Meanwhile, doctors interviewed by this reporter cited late arrival of patients to hospitals, less testing and non-availability of intensive care specialists in the province main causes of the highest mortality rate due to Covid-19.

“There is countrywide dearth of specialists required to manage patients in ICU,” they said.

They said that there was only one intensivist in the whole province who worked in the private sector while the government hospitals had ICUs but those were bereft of specialist due to which more people died of Covid-19.

According to them, pulmonologists and anesthesiologists, who are running the ICUs, are not specialists to give care to the seriously-ill people. They said that doctors were unwilling to do specialisation in intensive care as there was no attraction of private practice for them.

They suggested that government should announce incentives to attract doctors towards that specialty and improve the treatment and management of critically-sick people.

“There should be proper promotion for the intensivists to the rank of professor so that doctors can take up this specialty in future. Otherwise, people would continue to die and develop complications despite having latest machines in ICUs,” they said.

The health experts said that more than 50 per cent of the deaths due to Covid-19 occurred in ICUs where the patients remained for an average two days but they couldn’t survive.

In presence of specialists, the survival rates among the ICU patients could be improved, they added.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2020