PESHAWAR: Four districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had not recorded a single death due to Covid-19 so far as the province’s fatalities from the virus reached 6,082 with passing away of six more people on Wednesday.

None of the patients died in Torghar, Kohistan Upper and Lower and Kolai Palas districts due to Covid-19 since its onset in the province. These districts also enlisted fewer confirmed cases as compared to other districts as they recorded 302, 284, 230 and 69 cases respectively.

One person has died in North Waziristan, two in Lakki Marwat, three each in Tank and Orakzai, four in South Waziristan and seven in Shangla due to coronavirus. Fatalities in rest of districts remained in double and triple digits.

Officials say populous areas prone to virus due to mass movement

Peshawar division is the worst-hit with 3,175 deaths in its five districts and 96,563 cases of the total 206,879 in the province. Mardan division follows with 804 mortalities and 22,244 infections in its two districts. Malakand recorded 771deaths and 36,343 patients in its nine districts. Hazara saw death of 552 people from the pandemic and 24,738 positive cases. Kohat recorded 307 deaths and 13,677 cases; Dear Ismail Khan 226 deaths and 5,511 cases and Bannu reported 146 deaths and 5,651 cases.

Officials said that populous districts were prone to the virus due to mass movement and recorded more infections, especially Peshawar, Nowshera, Mardan and Swat that were visited by thousands of people every day. The districts with zero or fewer deaths had less human movement due to which the transmission rate was slow, they added.

A report of health department said that 90 per cent of the infected people including 1,337 patients recorded during the last 24 hours had recovered from the Covid-19. The tally of active patients in the province was 14,173 including 7,622 in Peshawar division, 2,711 in Mardan, 1,268 in Hazara, 1,079 in Kohat, 1,036 in Malakand, 278 in Dera Ismail Khan and 179 in Bannu, it added.

It said that positivity rate was 33 per cent in Mansehra, 23pc in Malakand and 22pc in Mardan. It added that overall positivity level in the province was13.9pc while five districts reported more than 20pc positivity rate. They include Malakand with 24pc Peshawar and Mardan 23pc each, Kohat 22pc and Nowshera 21pc.

The number of admissions in hospitals continued to rise due to seriously-ill Covid-19 patients. A report prepared by World Health Organisation said that hospitalisation rose to 15.3pc from 11.2 in the current week. The total number of patients in hospitals was 472 and 25 of them were on ventilators while 303 were on low flow oxygen and 144 on low-flow oxygen. There are 3,457 beds allocated for Covid-19 in the province.

The report said that 13,670 people were quarantined in homes and elsewhere. It said that utilisation of ventilators increased as compared to the last week. Bed occupancy in Peshawar and Swabi was 22pc, in Abbottabad 18pc, in Nowshera 13pc, in Mardan 11pc, in Bannu 9pc and in Swat 4pc, it added.

The report said that WHO was conducting training for healthcare workers on infection control and prevention in Swat. It has already conducted training for the staffers to prevent transmission of the virus in hospitals and enable the doctors, nurses and paramedics to stay safe from the pandemic.

During the last 20 days, 407 healthcare providers including 217 doctors, 115 other workers and 75 nurses got infected with Covid-19 in healthcare facilities, it said.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2022