PESHAWAR: Seven more people died of Covid-19 on Sunday as Peshawar continued to record more mortalities as it reported 50.4 per cent of the overall fatalities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Covid-19 positivity rate in Peshawar is 11.2 per cent, the highest in the country, according to a government report.

The province-wide death toll reached 1,839 and the provincial capital accounted for 927 coronavirus deaths since the onset of the pandemic.

A report of health department on Sunday said that of the seven people, who breathed their last due to coronavirus, five belonged to the provincial capital and one each to Swabi and Swat.

Over 26,000 test positive for virus

Peshawar also continues to witness more positive Covid-19 cases as so far 26,297 people have diagnosed with the infection of the total 65,532 reported positive for the infectious ailment in the province.

It has so far reported 40.12 per cent of the total positive patients in the province where case fatality rate is 3.5 per cent, up from 2.8 per cent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Of the total 3,233 active Covid-19 patients, 1,505 belong to the provincial metropolis, which is also

leading in the list of recovered patients with a score of 23,758 out of the total 60,222 people recovered from the infectious ailment. Peshawar also continues to record more cases as it has reported 122 more patients of the total 245 during the 24 hours.

The province has a total of 476 hospitalised patients of Covid-19, with 291 of them in Peshawar-based hospitals while the city is also host to 39 of the total 41 critical patients, who are on ventilators in the province.

The physicians, who are involved in the management of coronavirus patients, say that Peshawar has been the epicentre of Covid-19 since its advent in the province.

“It is not necessary that most patients dying of the virus and testing positive for it must belong to Peshawar as the people of province are in the habit of visiting the teaching hospitals, not only for Covid-19 but also for general ailments,” a senior physician told Dawn.

According to him, the government has over 1,500 health facilities in the province that include district headquarters hospitals and medical teaching institutions but the patients are yet to develop confidence in the hospitals located in their own areas so they prefer to travel to Peshawar to get good health services.

“Lately, we have upgraded services for Covid-19 patients in district level hospitals but people directly come to Peshawar’s teaching hospitals that bear the burden of all infected patients. Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex are favourite destinations of patients where they get not only good services for Covid-19 but they also get tested promptly than their local hospitals,” said the physician.

The health experts said that the patients were diagnosed for Covid-19 in Peshawar-based hospitals within 24 hours as opposed to the hospitals in their native areas where the results of swabs were made available to them in more than 48 hours. In some remote districts, the people have to wait painfully longer to get results of their tests which compel them to get tested in Peshawar and get speedy reports about their disease.

“The government has established good hospitals at the district level but it requires to introduce a referral system to decrease burden of patients on Peshawar and facilitate the people in their own areas,” said physicians.

They said that in case, the virus surged in the province, the Peshawar’s hospitals would again run of beds as happened in June and July last year when the Coviod-19 was on its peak.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2021