GILGIT, July 14: The National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, has dispatched over 100,000 expired chlorine tablets to the Sars screening and quarantine centres set up at the Sust, Hunza on the China border to cope with any Sars suspects coming from China, sources disclosed to Dawn.

The sources said that the issue of spurious tablets was brought to the knowledge of the NIH director Akhter Saeed Dil who is also national coordinator of Sars following the opening of the border with China on July 1.

The chlorine tablets are being used for water treatment, as water is contaminated in the border areas due to lack of proper tape system.

The sources said the NIH had recently received a large number of donations from various individuals and countries to combat Sars in Pakistan but the NIH had yet to extend its equipment and logistics to the Northern Areas which is more vulnerable to Sars as it borders China.

They said the tablets supplied by the NIH to the Sust screening centres in July were expired in May which were also provided to the journalists.

The doctors at the centres have already informed the NIH regarding the spurious chlorine tablets, the sources added.

The in-charge of the centres, Dr Sherbaz Khan, said their team at Deh checkpost had been screening about 200 passengers a day coming from China but so far they did not find any Sars-affected case.

Dr Khan ruled out the possibility of getting Sars spread in the region as the epidemic had been almost controlled in Chinese territories. He said they were ever alert to meet the situation and hopefully they would receive some more equipment for the makeshift hospital at Sust within a couple of days.

He said they had reserved a 10-bed hospital at Sust for which staff and equipment was made available from the local hospitals.