KARACHI, May 16: Health department in particular and the medical community in general were thrown into confusion and chaos on Friday when a 24-year-old man suspected of suffering from the dreaded Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome was quarantined at the Ojha Sanatorium.
A special team of the World Health Organization was called in from Islamabad to interview the 24-year-old Kashif Nadeem, who runs a shop in Saddar. Later the WHO team, after careful examination, declared that Kashif had not been suffering from Sars.
Prof Noshad A. Shaikh, a member of the Sars task force, told Dawn that Nadeem would be released within the next three days. “There’s no cause for concern since the WHO team says this man is not suffering from Sars,” he said.
He said Nadeem had initially been suspected of having Sars by the doctors of a private hospital who had then referred the case to the Ojha Institute of Chest Diseases. The institute’s doctors had advised immediate isolation of the man.
Later, they got in touch with the WHO team, who flew into the city soon. “By 6pm the WHO team had reached the Ojha Institute where they interviewed, and also examined, Nadeem in detail. And after about an hour they declared that Nadeem was not suffering from Sars, to the relief of everyone concerned.”
The word that Pakistan’s first Sars case may have been detected went through the medical community in a snap, causing considerable confusion and uncertainty. Dawn received numerous telephone calls about the case on Friday evening.
The health department’s senior officials were on the ready to hold a press conference about Nadeem’s case. However, when the WHO team declared that Sars was not involved, the press briefing plan was shelved.
A senior official told Dawn that doctors and common people alike were nervous about Sars because no treatment had yet been decided upon. “And the fatality rate is high too.”
Some members of the Pakistan Medical Association and Infectious Diseases Society of Pakistan, at a recent press conference, had said that the fatality rate was 6 to 7 per cent.
However some professionals led by Prof Viqar Zaman, a respected microbiologist, contend that the fatality rate is as high as ten per cent.
They are of the view that in this regard it is better to be edgy, and therefore alert, than to be complacent.
