ADEQUATE testing capability is integral to formulating a response to any health crisis. One can multiply that importance by several hundredfold in a pandemic situation. Sindh has been warning of a dire shortage of testing kits, and unless things change quickly, worse looms on the horizon. According to the provincial government, the stock of 6,000 kits available with both public and private hospitals in its jurisdiction is sufficient for less than two weeks. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah’s effort to procure 300,000 kits from China and the UK for use in the province remains in limbo without the centre’s authorisation for cargo flights to bring in the consignments. There must be a concerted effort to address the province’s predicament. Consider that in the latest 24-hour tally, 20pc of the tests conducted in Sindh came out positive.

Testing enables authorities to isolate the individual and stem the spread of the virus. We are entering a stage where coronavirus cases in the country are beginning to show an exponential increase, even with limited kits and diagnostic facilities. It took the first 10 days of this month for Covid-19 infections to nearly double from 2,238 to 4,263. Pakistan has so far tested around 250 per million of its population, far more than India (129 pm), but much less than Iran (2,755pm). A true picture of the contagion may well be eluding the authorities because they are trying to ration the testing, limiting it to individuals presenting symptoms of Covid-19, or at most, those suspected of having come into contact with an infectious person. Many asymptomatic cases are slipping under the radar, leading to a skewed epidemiological picture.

Minister for Planning Asad Umar at a press conference yesterday said Pakistan now has the capacity to carry out at least 100,000 Covid-19 tests at 26 labs across the country. He also added that material for 100,000 test kits had been received on Friday, of which 50,000 would be given to Sindh and 25,000 to Balochistan. While scaling up diagnostic capacity, the government must also take testing further afield beyond urban centres through mobile vans or by setting up diagnostic facilities in district hospitals. As Chinese health experts in meetings with Pakistani officials have repeatedly emphasised, testing is key to mounting an effective defence against the coronavirus. On Saturday, it was announced that several areas in Karachi’s District East were sealed because some residents had been diagnosed with Covid-19. Such scenarios are also increasingly taking place in other parts of the country. Enhanced diagnostic capacity can enable the authorities to make informed decisions about when an area-wise lockdown can be partially lifted, or even imposed in the first place. Unless mass testing — covering at least a substantial representative sample of the population — is instituted, we may be faced at some point with a widespread, unmanageable explosion of cases.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2020