PESHAWAR: The health department detected 46 Covid-19 infected people in 19 schools of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since September 15 but all the confirmed cases didn’t have any symptoms and therefore were safe from complications, officials said.

The officials associated with schools’ screening said that situation was completely under control due to which the middle and primary schools would resume operation on September 23 and October 1 respectively.

However, screening would be conducted when the new schools resumed operation, they said.

“So far, 7,063 swabs have been collected from teachers, staffers and students of the high schools. The positivity ratio is below two per cent which is normal. The confirmed people don’t have any symptoms, due to which they don’t face any threat,” said officials.

They said that they advised the positive people to isolate in their homes and don’t get in touch with their older parents or other elderly people in the families because the aged population was prone to contracting the infection.

46 cases detected in 19 schools since 15th

They said that they traced the contacts of the positive patients and did not find any confirmed case among them due to which, the government was advised to go ahead with the plan of reopening of the remaining schools in the province.

Officials said that positive patients were also advised to stay away from the people in their families who had other illnesses like diabetes, liver, heart and other chronic health problems.

School testing will continue till October 15 in line with the decision of National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) after which it would be reviewed and may be stopped with reduction in number of cases.

The screening process will be extended to the remaining districts in the province next week where number of Covid-19 cases in general population is lesser than the districts where screening was presently being conducted.

“We would be reducing number of testing in high-risk districts after a review of the data by end of this week. In Peshawar, presently 300 tests are being conducted that would be cut by half and the focus would be shifted to more schools in other districts,” said officials.

They said that with the onset of the winter season next month, there was a chance that virus could re-emerge, therefore, the government decided to strengthen monitoring of schools with emphasis on the adherence to the standard operating procedures.

A recent international study has also shown that with reduction in moister in the air in the immediate future, virus can re-emerge, therefore, all precautionary measures would remain in place and the province would continue to conduct 1,500 tests in schools per day.

Officials said that some studies suggested that smog and air pollution could aggravate the situation with regard to emergence of virus in November, but Khyber Pakhtunkhwa did not have any such issues.

They said that Punjab was asked by the NCOC to take extra care during smog.

They said that prevalence of pandemic in general population in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was also decreasing and only one person had passed away during the past 10 days due to the virus.

They added that the number of daily incidences had come down to less than 40 per day and positivity less than two per cent.

The province has so far recorded 1,258 deaths due to the virus and 37,353 cases so far. Of the total patients, 35,561 have recovered and there are only 538 active cases.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2020