TAXILA: Attock and Taxila reported seven new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, bringing their totals to 56 and 43, respectively.

Attock district’s focal person on Covid-19, Dr Asif Arbab Niazi, said that a 69-year-old man from Jatail village near Kamra tested positive. He was already admitted to the Kamra Pakistan Aeronautical Complex Hospital.

The second patient is a native of Hazro tehsil who was received from the Expo Centre field hospital in Lahore with a Covid-19 diagnosis, while the third patient is from Jehri Kaas village in Hassanabdal and has been admitted to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital.

He said that one patient in Attock city has been isolated in Wapda Colony.

Dr Niazi said that two of the patients contracted the disease through local transmission and one had a history of travelling abroad.

Meanwhile, six relatives of a shopkeeper who had tested positive for Covid-19 were released from a quarantine facility in Fatehjang after completing the quarantine period and testing negative.

Dr Niazi said the number of suspected cases has risen to 1,388 in the district, while 4,215 have been screened as of Thursday. The results of 262 suspected patients are awaited.

Nine patients are being treated in various hospitals and 16 are at quarantine facilities in the district, he added.

Those in treatment at these facilities are stable.

He said seven areas were locked down and sealed after Covid-19 cases were reported there, of which five have been unsealed and two remain locked down by the district administration and health department.

In Taxila, three new patients brought the total number of Covid-19 cases to 43.

Assistant Commissioner Mohammad Faheem said that the new patients include a doctor at a public sector hospital, a 52-year-old resident of Wah and a 50-year-old man who is a professor at a public sector college and lives on Thatta Khalil Road.

One of the patients was taken to the Benazir Bhutto Hospital in Rawalpindi and the other two were taken to a public sector hospital in Taxila and the Pakistan Ordnance Factories Hospital in Wah.

Their close contacts have been tested as well.

Mr Faheem said that according to official records, four people have died and eight have recovered from Covid-19 in the city while one person is isolated at home and 30 others are admitted t0 various health facilities.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2020