KARACHI: Sindh Chief Min­ister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Monday directed all the government and private hospitals to share with the health ministry the record of all those patients with the symptoms of pneumonia so that their further medical investigations could be done to contain coronavirus.

He issued these directives while presiding over a meeting of the Task Force on Coronavirus here at CM House.

The meeting was attended by relevant government officials.

The chief minister directed the health department to issue an advisory to all the public and private hospitals to share the data of the patients visiting them with the symptoms of pneumonia so their further medical investigation could be conducted.

The additional chief secretary informed the meeting that he on the instructions of the CM had requested the federal government to issue a health card/travel declaration to every international passenger so that their record for necessary screening could be maintained.

Health travel declarations are being distributed among passengers of international flights landing at Karachi

He said the federal government had accepted the chief minister’s proposal and health card/travel declaration cards were being distributed among the passengers of international flights coming to Karachi.

The additional chief secretary further informed the meeting that the passengers had to record their travel history of the previous 14 days in the declaration.

The health secretary told the CM that four tests of suspected cases were conducted on Monday and all were diagnosed as negative.

He said the coronavirus patient declared positive on Sunday had 27 contacts and of them eight were tested and declared as negative while tests of 19 remaining contacts were yet to be done.

Patient’s slow recovery

Answering a question, the CM was told that three patients of coronavirus were under treatment and two of them had recovered while the recovery of the third one was slow.

The CM directed the health department to give proper care and treatment to the patient whose recovery rate was slow.

It was pointed out at the meeting that so far 135 tests had been conducted in the province and four of them were diagnosed as positive and 112 as negative.

It was informed that at present 230 pilgrims were in quarantine, of them 63 would complete the isolation on March 10; 25 on March 11 and 34 on March 12.

The CM was also told that 59 suspects who had travelled with four coronavirus patients of Sindh had been traced and their list was shared with all the deputy commissioners in order to contact them and conduct their necessary medical investigations.

The FIA representative told the meeting that 29 passengers had gone to Iran had later travelled to other countries also before returning to Pakistan. He said their record had been shared with the health department.

The CM was also informed that 69 more passengers also travelled to some other countries and returned home some 14 days ago.

The FIA official said that the details of the passengers had also been shared with the health department.

The CM was told that one of the passengers was kept in quarantine while the deputy commissioners had traced the others also.

The immigration authorities also shared the data of 3,630 passengers who returned from Iran, Italy, South Korea, Iraq and Thailand.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2020