HYDERABAD: Three more persons from Hyderabad, among 34 from other districts, tested positive for coronavirus as per reports released by Diagnostic and Research Laboratory of Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) Jamshoro.

The laboratory received 531 samples from Hyderabad, Dadu, Mirpurkhas and Tando Allahyar districts and of them 34 turned out to be positive for the virus. They included three new cases of Hyderabad, raising the district’s total to 205 since the pandemic broke out. Many have since been discharged and left for their native areas like Tableeghi Jamaat members.

Meanwhile, an undertrial prisoner was taken to LUH isolation ward on Thursday after the prison superintendent Ziaur Rehman refused to receive him in line with court’s directives that a suspect was to be screened first.

Call for imposition of emergency

Sindh Progressive Committee leaders have called for imposition of emergency in the country and advised authorities to refrain from employing strong-arm tactics in order to enforce lockdown.

In a joint statement, the committee leaders Bakhshal Thalho, Noor Nabi Rahujo and Imdad Kazi said that world community should desist from blame game and embargos to make sure people received all necessities of life.

They said that free coronavirus screening centres should be established in all divisions and free ration distribution should also be ensured.

BADIN: Two members of Tableeghi Jamaat, among 194 suspected cases, have tested positive for coronavirus in Tando Bago and Talhar towns, according to District Health Officer Dr Liaquat Qambrani.

Meanwhile, the Sindh government’s directives to further tighten lockdown were being violated with complete impunity in Badin and other towns and the officials concerned failed to enforce social distancing in markets and at emergency Ehsaas support centres.

MIRPURKHAS: Three members of Tableeghi Jamaat, among the 76 tested for the virus, were found positive and shifted to isolation centre at district headquarters hospital. The rest of 73 tested negative.

Health officials said that the 76 were among 350 faithful who had been quarantined at Tableeghi Markaz. The test reports of the remaining 261 quarantined persons would be released soon.

MITHI: Almost all members of the public including traders abided by lockdown measures wholeheartedly as personnel of police and Rangers stood alert.

Even the deserving women gathered at the Ehsaas Kafalat centre observed social distancing and said the Rs12,000 would help them greatly in tiding over problems.

NAWABSHAH: There had been no case of local transmission so far in Shaheed Benazirabad division, said Commissioner Syed Mohsin Shah.

He said that there were a total of 83 Covid-19 positive cases in the division but none of them was a case of local transmission as all who tested positive for the virus were members of Tableeghi Jamaat.

UMERKOT: As many as 127 people, 124 of them members of Tableeghi Jamaat, have been quarantined at Ghosia guesthouse and several mosques in the district, according to health officials.

Dr Ghulam Mustafa, relative of a Covid-19 patient, expressed surprise how the doctors at trauma centre, Karachi, could act so “irresponsibly”. They discharged his cousin on April 14 without informing him that he had been tested positive for coronavirus, he claimed.

The patient stayed two days at a hospital in Hyderabad, where he might have infected many and later he arrived in Umerkot and met scores of relatives who too might have contracted the virus, he said.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2020