PESHAWAR: Covid-19 claimed 18 lives and infected 186 others in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday as the elderly and people with underlying health conditions continued to die of the pandemic in the province.

The health department’s Covid-19 situation report said that death toll from the infection in the province reached to 3,804 and cases to 127,224 since the advent of the pandemic. There are 7671 active coronavirus patients in the province while 115,742 have recovered from the infection including 314 more recorded during the last 24 hours.

Peshawar, the hardest-hit district of the province, reported eight mortalities, Mardan three, Swabi two and Nowshera, Dir Upper, Battagram, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan one each.

18 more die of virus in province

Peshawar has registered 1,884 deaths, half of the province-wide fatalities due to the pandemic, so far. It has also reported about 47,490 cases, the highest number of infections in the province. The virus has infected 41 more people in Peshawar and 27 in Mardan.

Six districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are among the 19 high-burdened Covid-19 districts in the country. In Mardan, positivity for Covid-19 was recorded 17 per cent, in Peshawar 14.9 per cent, in Abbottabad 8.6 per cent, in Nowshera 7.3 per cent, in Charsadda 6.4 per cent and in Swat 5 per cent.

Health officials said that people above 60 years or those having other diseases were dying of the Covid-19 in the province while the number of below 60 was about 15 per cent.

“Nationwide data shows that 65 per cent elderly and people with underlying health conditions died of coronavirus but in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 85 per cent of the deceased persons were above 60 or had other ailments, which made them vulnerable to the infection,” they said. They added that people were brought to the hospitals in the last stage of the disease due to which they died on ventilators.

Officials said that only 10 per cent of the people survived on ventilators. “About 10 per cent patients are brought to the hospitals when they are dead. There are also reports of community-based deaths from the virus as many people avoid taking their patients to hospitals, owing to misconception about the Covid-19,” they added.

Physicians at the local hospitals attribute most of the deaths to mismanagement or virulent strain of the virus. “The hospitals are using different treatment protocols, especially the private hospitals. The public sector hospitals follow the treatment protocol issued by the health department,” said a senior physician.

He said that the treatment protocol was not being followed as every hospital was following its own protocol. “We are facing a lot of issues from the relatives of the dead people. All want injections,” he added.

Another physician at one of the medical teaching institutions told Dawn that public awareness regarding Covid-19 was need of the hour. The people must be told categorically that they should abide by social distancing rules, wear mask and sanitize hands to stay safe in third wave of the pandemic, which was taking heavy toll on the patients as well as healthcare providers, he added.

He said that people with other ailments or aged ones shouldn’t be exposed to crowd but they should get vaccinated and remain in isolation.

“Awareness is most important aspect of Covid-19 prevention strategy because the district administrations aren’t able to enforce the SOPs on the entire population due to the limited staff. We should prepare the people to make SOPs part of their normal life as the virus isn’t going anywhere and will stay around for many years,” said the physician.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2021