NOWSHERA: Pakistan Tobacco Company (PTC) closed its offices in Akora Khattak here on Thursday after 44 of its employees tested positive for coronavirus.

“The company has specially hired services of a private laboratory in Islamabad which tested all its employees, including 200 permanent and 600 contractual. The samples of 800 employees had been sent to the lab for tests to find out the affected employees,” said a PTC official.

In this connection, Nowshera deputy commissioner Shahid Ali Khan confirmed the cases, saying that the local administration had closed the PTC offices to contain the spread of coronavirus. He said that results of other employees were awaited.

The DC said that Rescue 1122 had shifted the affected persons to different quarantine centres in the district. He said that the company had adopted standard precautionary measures and provided necessary personal protective equipment to the employees, but even then coronavirus affected a large number of them.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2020