CHITRAL: A Covid-19 testing facility has been sought for Chitral in order to check spread of the deadly virus in the region.

Talking to Dawn here on Monday, a doctor said the administrations of both the Upper and Lower Chitral districts were doing nothing practical but to quarantine the people arriving here for last 40 five days.

He argued that over 3,000 people had so far been quarantined in both the districts, which had cost Rs20 million on their boarding and lodging, while price of a coronavirus testing machine was about Rs5 million with all accessories, chemicals and kits involved.

The doctor said presently the samples of suspects were sent to Peshawar under cold-chain system to retain their vitality at huge transportation cost. He said there was always a risk of the swab sample getting expired, thus costing doubts on the result reports.

He said it could prove disastrous if the positive case was detected as negative as a result of contamination of the sample due to the long time involved.

A doctor in the district headquarters hospital, Chitral, said though all the passengers arriving here were not Covid-19 suspects their stay in the quarantine centres with suspected patients could infected them as well.

He said out of the 12 cases of Covid-19 in Lower Chitral, nine were lodged in the same quarantine centre established in the hostel of Government Commerce College. He said local transmission of the virus had so far been zero.

He suggested that healthy people should be tested for the virus shortly after their arrival in the district to help reduce load on the quarantine centres.

Lower Chitral deputy commissioner Naveed Ahmed said in case of availability of testing facility, a passenger coming from the down country would have to stay for a day only in the quarantine centre in case he tested negative.

He said it cost his administration over Rs70,000 in transporting the samples to the reference laboratory in Peshawar in the required temperature.

He added that daily samples of about 300 persons were taken and sent to laboratory.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2020