BAHAWALNAGAR: The health department officials collected samples of a 37-year-old man who died on Wednesday from fever and flu in Minchinabad.Waseem, of the Loharka area of Minchinabad, was a labourer in Lahore. He suffered from fever and flu and returned to his village from Lahore recently. He died at village home as his family did not take him to any hospital. After the news of his death, health officials visited his house and collected samples for the Covid-19 test.

According to health department sources, the district has no facility to test coronavirus and doctors lack protective gears in the Bahawalnagar District Headquarters Hospital as well as tehsil headquarters hospitals.

Sources said the District Health Authority was given 16 new ventilators, of them, 13 ventilators have been given to Nishtar Hospital Multan on the orders of the Punjab government whereas the administration has not made the remaining three ventilators functional.

DHQ ICU In Charge Dr Atique Mushtaq said that doctors and paramedics working in the emergency wards have been provided with protective gears. However, he said, the gear provided was insufficient and there was not a single test kit available to check coronavirus cases. He said that three new ventilators had not made them functional.

District Health Officer Waheed Afsar Bajwa told Dawn that even after reminding the government several times, they did not receive a single test kit. Suspected patients were being screened with the help of the Bahawalpur Combined Military Hospital. He said that according to the new policy of the government, doctors and paramedics working in the emergency had been divided into three categories and facemasks and safety kits had been made mandatory for those dealing with coronavirus patients. He said that after this categorization, there was no shortage of masks and safety kits for the Punjab government.

Mr Bajwa said that in the last two weeks, 892 people traveled back form Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and other countries to Bahawalnagar, and around 95 per cent of them had been screened and cleared. He said that there were 40 people who had traveled from abroad but had not reached Bahawalnagar yet, whereas only five people, including the Minchinabad deceased, had been tested for coronavirus and their test results had not received yet.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2020