ISLAMABAD: Five people lost their lives while another 558 contracted Covid-19 in the twin cities on Saturday with Pims authorities revealing that several children were among the patients.

A separate ward had to be established in the Children’s Hospital to accommodate the children who were displaying severe symptoms. Besides, 95 more beds were allocated in the capital’s hospitals for treatment of the virus-affected people.

Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) Joint Executive Director Dr Minhajus Siraj told Dawn that an isolation ward was established at the Children Hospital to treat virus-infected children aged up to 12 years. The ward has the capacity of 15 beds and currently three children are admitted there, he added.

During the first wave of the pandemic, no child had been kept under the observation of doctors or provided oxygen. But now children needing oxygen have also started coming to the hospital, he added.

Two more isolation wards, one each in Medical 4 and 5, were opened at Pims with the capacity of 85 beds, he said. As a result, the number of beds allocated for Covid-19 patients had increased to 200.

Pims reports children among patients with severe symptoms

Another isolation ward is being established in Medial Ward 6 which will become operational by next week. At present, Dr Siraj added, there were four isolation wards in Pims.

He said Covid-19 patients were coming to the hospital at an advanced stage with their lungs compromised. The medical staff is facing hardship to help them recover, Dr Siraj added.

“We are making all possible and best efforts to help them recover and trying not to put them on ventilators until there is no choice left,” he said, adding that only 18pc of the patients on ventilators recovered.

“Putting critical virus-affected patients on ventilators is the last effort of doctors to save their life,” he said.

Officials of the capital administration told Dawn that 13 more beds were also allocated in two hospitals, including 10 in CDA Hospital. With these, the number of beds allocated for coronavirus patients in 12 hospitals of the capital increased to 493, including 418 with the facility of oxygen.

There are 326 patients admitted to these hospitals, including 181 residents of Islamabad. The condition of 19 patients is stable, 270 are on oxygen and 37 on ventilators. There are 5,721 patients isolated/quarantined at homes or elsewhere.

On Saturday, two deaths and 447 new cases were reported in the capital. A man in the age group of 40-49 and a woman aged 80-89 years died in hospitals. They were residents of Bhara Kahu and G-7.

In the last 24 hours, 7,446 tests were conducted and 440 of them were contacts of positive cases. The positivity rate remained 6pc.

As many as 30 cases were reported from I-8, 28 from G-7, 27 from Bhara Kahu, 25 from Tarlai, 20 from G-8, 17 each from G-9 and G-6, 16 from I-10, 15 from G-10, 14 each from Ghouri Town and E-11, 13 from F-10, 12 each from I-9, G-11, F-7 and G-15, 11 from G-13, 10 from DHA-II, nine each from Bahria Town and F-8, eight each from PWD and Banigala, seven each from Margalla Town/Rawal Town and F-6, six each from Sohan, D-12, G-5 and F-11, five each from Thandapani, Chak Shahzad, Media Town, B-17 and D-17, four each from Soan Garden, Rawat, Khanna, Jinnah Garden and F-17, three each from NPF, Naval Anchorage and E-7, two each from Bahria Enclave, Gulberg Town, G-14 and F-5 and the remaining from other areas.

Rawalpindi

Three patients died and 111 people tested positive for the deadly virus in different areas of the garrison city.

Ghulam Hussain, 80, a resident of Muslim Town, was brought to Benazir Bhutto Hospital on Nov 24 where he died on Saturday morning.

Tariq Janjua, 62, a resident of Munawar Mohallah Adiala Road, was also admitted to Benazir Bhutto Hospital on Nov 27 where he died late Friday night.

Mohammad Akhtar, 71, from Dheri Hassanabad was shifted to Rawalpindi Institute of Urology on Nov 27 but he breathed his last on Saturday morning.

A total of 1,283 patients are under treatment including 249 in Holy Family Hospital, Rawalpindi Institute of Urology and Benazir Bhutto Hospital. Among them, 176 patients are from Rawalpindi district while the remaining 73 are from other districts. As many as 65 patients belong to Rawalpindi city, 12 are from the cantonment areas, one each from Gujar Khan and Kotli Sattian, three from Taxila, eight from Kallar Syedan and 21 from Kahuta.Around 1,034 patients have been isolated in their homes.

Commissioner retired Capt Mohammad Mehmood told Dawn that 11,901 people had tested positive for Covid-19 since March with 10,075 in Rawalpindi, 774 in Attock, 684 in Jhelum and 368 in Chakwal. He said 9,910 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovering out of which 8,397 were from Rawalpindi, 654, Attock; 567, Jhelum and 292 from Chakwal.

He said 477 people died in Rawalpindi Division - 395 in Rawalpindi, 22 in Attock, 10 in Jhelum and 50 in Chakwal.

Taxila

The tehsil saw another spike of positive cases during the last 24 hours as 17 more people got infected on Saturday.

According to the report issued by the local health department, the number of positive patients in the city had surged to 735.

Deputy District Officer Health Dr Sara Qadeer said 10 new cases surfaced in ward 8 and one each in ward 6 and 3 of Wah Cantonment while two were from the rural areas of Taxila.

She said the tehsil had 122 active cases at present and all were home isolated, adding that 578 patients had so far recovered from the virus.

Meanwhile, two more were infected in Attock on Saturday, raising the number of positive cases in the district to 774.

Attock’s focal person on Covid-19 Dr Saeed Akhtar said positive cases were reported from Hazro which had remained a hotspot in the district.

He said there were 74 active patients across the district out of which 65 were under home isolation while nine were being treated in hospitals.

He said three suspected patients had also been admitted to DHQ Hospital, with two in critical condition.

Responding to a question, Dr Akhtar said suspected cases in the district totaled around 19,457 with 22,908 people having screened so far.

— Additional reporting by Amjad Iqbal

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2020