KARACHI: An ENT surgeon was among 41 patients that died overnight in Sindh due to Covid-19 — the highest number of fatalities reported in the province since the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic.

Dr Muhammad Waris, the ENT surgeon posted at Sindh Government Hospital New Karachi, is the second doctor to have died of the disease this month. Earlier, Dr Shahab Yameen, the chief medical officer at Qatar Hospital, had died on Dec 1.

Media reports late on Monday night said religious scholar Mufti Zar Wali also passed away due to the coronavirus.

In a statement issued here on Monday, Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said that 41 Covid-19 patients died during the past 24 hours lifting the death toll to 3,060 in the province.

An ENT surgeon also dies of the disease lifting the death toll of doctors in the province to 40

He said 1,726 new cases emerged when 12,442 tests were conducted raising the tally to 186,212. The detection rate reached to around 14 per cent.

He said that 41 deaths stemming from the coronavirus within 24 hours was the highest number ever reported in the province.

CM Shah said that so far 2,076,519 tests had been conducted against which 186,212 patients were diagnosed, of them 87pc, or 160,933, had recovered, including 1,352 overnight.

He said that currently 22,219 patients were under treatment, of them 21,350 in home isolation, 12 at isolation centres and 857 at different hospitals.

“Currently, the condition of 76 patients is stated to be critical,” he added.

Out of 1,726 new cases, 1,484 have been detected in Karachi, including 584 in district South, 455 in East, 256 in Korangi, 164 in Central, 80 in Malir and 71 in district West.

He said that Hyderabad had 43 cases, Thatta 20, Jamshoro and Sanghar 16 each, Naushahro Feroze 14, Umerkot and Ghotki 12 each, Tando Allahyar and Badin 10 each, Matiari and Shikarpur nine each, Sujawal eight, Larkana and Shaheed Benazirabad six each, Jacobabad five, Mirpurkhas and Sukkur three each and Tando Mohammad Khan had one new case.

40 doctors have died so far in Sindh

With the death of ENT surgeon Muhammad Waris, the number of doctors that have died of Covid-19 in Sindh this year reached 40.

Dr Waris was admitted to a private hospital with pneumonia. He was posted at the Sindh Government Hospital in New Karachi.

A list compiled by the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) shows that a total of 158 healthcare providers have died of Covid-19 in the country since March this year. Of them, 131 are doctors including six ENT specialists.

Fifty-eight doctors have died in Punjab, 24 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, five in Balochistan, one in Gilgit-Baltistan and three in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

According to a government list, a total of 10,870 healthcare providers have so far been confirmed Covid-19 positive in the country. Of them, 3,100 are in Sindh.

“The situation is highly worrisome. Nowhere in the world Covid-19 has claimed so many lives of healthcare professionals. The government and healthcare administrations must look into it and ensure that personal protective equipment is available to the staff and is used [as] per the WHO guidelines,” said PMA secretary general Dr Qaiser Sajjad.

He also called upon doctors, especially those who are required to take a close observation of patients such as eye and ENT specialists and dentists, not to compromise medical protocols even in an emergency and ensure their protection.

The second wave of the pandemic starting from November has so far claimed the lives of 18 doctors in the country.

The list includes four Karachi-based doctors — Prof Rasheed Choudhary, a professor of surgery and former director at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Dr Khalid Khan, a senior anaesthetist at the Liaquat National Hospital, Prof Nizamul Hasan, a former director of the National Institute of Child Health and founder of the Child Aid Association and Dr Nizamuddin Rajput, the chief medical officer at the DMC-Central Hospital.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2020