PESHAWAR: Covid-19 claimed 32 more lives and infected 610 people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the health department began free treatment of the coronavirus patients from the funds of Sehat Sahulat Programme.

“Free treatment of coronavirus patients in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has started on Sehat Card Plus in private and government hospitals. During the global epidemic, Chief Minister Mahmood Khan’s government is trying to reduce the problems of people as much as possible,” Health Minister Taimur Salim Jhagra said in a statement.

The minister also described the Covid-19 situation as precarious and pointed out that no district in the province was safe from the pandemic.

According to a report by health department, the province’s total deaths due to coronavirus are now 2,683 and cases are 100,275 while 84,282 patients have recovered from the infectious ailment.

Govt starts treatment of Covid patients from Sehat Sahulat scheme funds

It said that 670 more patients recovered during the last 24 hours. The province has a total 13,070 active cases.

The new deaths included 12 in Peshawar, 11 in Mardan, four in Haripur, two in Swat and one each in Chitral Upper and Kohat. Mardan has reported 180 coronavirus cases, Peshawar 105, Swat 57, Malakand 46, Nowshera 42, Abbottabad 39, Buner 24, Shangla 22 and Dera Ismail Khan has recorded 21 cases.

Minister Taimur Jhagra also shared information regarding the level of infections in different districts in few tweets on Saturday.

He said that a detailed analysis on Covid-19 district-wise situation showed that all seven districts of Peshawar and Mardan divisions were plateauing but the more populated districts including Peshawar, Mardan, Swabi, Charsadda and Nowshera were stabilising at a very high level above 15 per cent.

“Our other affected region is Malakand division. Thankfully, Swat, Lower Dir and Malakand are plateauing but Buner is currently the most affected district with 29 per cent positivity,” Mr Jhagra tweeted.

According to him, Shangla, Upper Dir and Bajaur are still badly affected by the pandemic.

About the Covid-19 scenario in Hazara division, he said that Abbottabad had over 10 per cent positivity rate. Haripur and Mansehra with over five per cent positivity were also likely to have a significant number of cases.

“Amongst the three southern divisions, Kohat has plateaued with a high positivity rate of 15 per cent. Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan, the other two urban centres, also plateaued with positivity around five per cent, but this wave has spread to rural areas as well. So no region can consider itself safe,” said the minister.

Health officials said that the overall positivity for Covid-19 in the province was 6.8 per cent. “The major problem is Mardan and Peshawar where number of mortalities and cases is surging. Mardan has four per cent, Swabi has 3.8 per cent and Peshawar has 3.5 per cent case fatality (CFR) rate respectively,” they said. The province has overall 2.6 per cent CFR.

They said that patients could seek free Covid-19 treatment in government as well private hospitals that were on the panel of Sehat Sahulat Programme.

Officials said that people were already getting free services on Sehat Card Plus after extension of the programme to the entire province last year.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2021

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