PESHAWAR: The positivity level of Covid-19 climbed down in high risk districts following imposition of lockdown as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa reported 43 more deaths including a senior doctor and 509 new cases of the infectious ailment on Tuesday.

The cases have also come down but mortalities remained the same for two weeks as Covid-19 killed elderly people and those with underlying conditions in the province.

Dr Noor Islam, a former medical superintendent of tehsil headquarters hospital Takht Bhai in Mardan, died of coronavirus in Peshawar after remaining in isolation for one week, according a to a statement issued by Provincial Doctors Association. So far 65 doctors have died of the virus.

Except Swat and Charsadda, positivity of Covid-19 swabs has gone down during the past two weeks, according to a report. Abbottabad, which recorded one per cent infectivity of swabs two weeks earlier, remains the same.

43 persons including senior doctor die due to pandemic in KP

On April 21, overall positivity rate was 7.1 per cent that rose to 7.4 per cent after two weeks. Mardan had 33 per cent positivity, Peshawar 26 per cent, Nowshera 20 per cent, Swabi 16 per cent, Charsadda nine per cent and Swat had two per cent, according to official document.

During the last 24 hours, Peshawar’s positivity ratio was 16.1 per cent, Nowshera’s 16.1 per cent, Swabi’s zero per cent, Charsadda’s 12.2 per cent and Swat’s 15.3 per cent.

Officials in health department said that situation was likely to show more improvement if Covid-19 restrictions were imposed strictly.

Mardan is the latest example where infectivity rate of the virus had reached more than 35 per cent but it was brought down to only four per cent after a weeklong lockdown was imposed by the administration.

The province reported 1,241 Covid-19 infections on April 21. The count of incidence remained 1,000 on average per day till May 1 when the province reported 864 cases, followed by 787 on May 2 and 526 on May 3. However, it continues to register on average 35 deaths a day.

Officials attribute more deaths to comorbidities among the infected people. More than 70 per cent victims suffered from heart, liver, lungs diseases and cancer or high blood pressure and diabetes etc, they said.

In Mardan case fatality rate (CFR) was 4.2 per cent 14 days ago that remained the same. Abbottabad went up to 4.1 per cent from 4 during that period. Peshawar, which has recorded the highest number of fatalities than any other district, had 3.6 per cent CFR that rose to 3.7 per cent. CFR is Swabi is 3.8 per cent that was 3.7 per cent two weeks ago.

Active cases in the province are 11,640, witnessing a slight rise during the past two weeks. Overall CFR is 2.8 per cent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that was 2.7 per cent a fortnight ago. Positivity ratio at provincial level is 7.4 per cent now as compared to the 7.1 per cent of the past.

As 65 per cent of the infected people are above 65 years, the number of admissions has increased from 700 to more than 1,100 in the hospitals. The province’s recovery rate is 87 per cent.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has lost 3,423 persons to the virus including 2,182

males and 1,241 females. A total of 1, 20,590 patients including 80,596 males and 39,994 females have tested positive so far.

A health department report said that 1,030 patients recovered from the infection during the past 24 hours. Sixteen persons died in Peshawar, six in Swat, three in Charsadda, four each in Mardan and Swabi, three each in Kohat, Dera Ismail Khan and Abbottabad and one in Nowshera.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2021