PESHAWAR: The WHO and Islamic Relief Pakistan have donated PCR kits for coronavirus tests to the Khyber Medical University’s Public Health Reference Laboratory and Saidu Teaching Hospital (STH), Swat.

KMU vice-chancellor Prof Dr Ziaul Haq, Dr Yasir Yousafzai, Dr Asif Ali, WHO chief of KP Dr Saeed Akbar Khan, Islamic Relief’s area programme manager Syed Usman and others attended the handing over ceremony here the other day.

The kits will be distributed between the KMU’s laboratory and Saidu Teaching Hospital at the ratio of 60:40 per cent, respectively, a press release said.

It said that the world health agency had already donated five PCR machines to the health department which were used during the Covid-19 pandemic.

On this occasion, Dr Ziaul Haq said that KMU and STH had served the province on the frontline during the coronavirus outbreak. He said that 1,000 Covid-19 tests were being conducted daily in KMU and 300 in STH, Swat.

Prof Haq thanked the officials of Islamic Relief and WHO for their support and trust in KMU and hoped that bilateral cooperation would continue in the future as well.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2020