FAISALABAD: Succumbing to the political and public pressure, the district administration on Sunday abandoned the plan to convert the University of Agriculture Faisalabad hostels into a quarantine centre for the coronavirus suspected patients.

Earlier, the UAF administration had vacated all the hostels, allowing the district administration to use them as quarantine centre and a meeting to review the arrangements made in this regard was held on Saturday with Vice-chancellor Dr Muhammad Ashraf in the chair.

MNA Farrukh Habib, denying the reports of arrival of some 3,000 pilgrims returning from Iran at Faisalabad quarantine center, said people should avoid spreading rumours on the social media as it was creating panic among the masses

He said in a meeting with the district administration it had been discussed that pilgrims should not be kept in the UAF hostels. He, however, said that being Pakistani we should extend all sorts of help to our brothers who were returning from Iran like we did in Dera Ghazi Khan by establishing a quarantine centre there.

He said only the local suspected patients of coronavirus would kept in a quarantine facility outside the city area.

Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Ali confirmed that the plan to use the UAF hostels as a quarantine centre had been abandoned and now only 150 suspected virus patients would be kept at the quarantine centre established in Faisalabad.

Earlier, the district administration had allocated all the 250 beds of the General Hospital, Ghulam Muhammad Abad and 400 beds of the Social Security Hospital for the coronavirus suspects .

The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), had also criticised the decision of shifting the pilgrims returning from Iran to Faisalabad.

The PMA president, Dr Soulat Nawaz, said the district administration would have created a mess in the district by keeping the pilgrims in the city area that was so far safe from coronavirus.

PMA secretary general Dr Muhammad Irfan termed the administration’s decision to keep keep the suspected virus patients near the densely populated city area unwise.

He said their presence in the city could have posed a big risk to the healthy population.

He said being a medical practitioner he wanted every patient to recover but that should not be done at the cost of other people’s health.

“We appreciate the parliamentarians, doctors and the public who forced administration to abandon the plan of turning the UAF hostels into a quarantine centre,” he added.

A UAF official said the district administration had asked the university officials to provide them hostels to set up quarantine centre. He said the UAF had made all arrangements in this regard and informed the district administration about it.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2020