Gradual fall in daily tests doesn’t show diminishing testing capacity of govt: Murtaza Wahab

The Sindh government has said a gradual decrease in daily tests being conducted to detect cases of coronavirus in the province is not because of its diminishing testing capacity, but it is because people have been shying away from getting tested due to a negative campaign against people infected with the viral disease.

“We need to understand that there is no need to loathe the patient of the coronavirus, and people should be helped to overcome the fear of this disease,” said Law and Environment Barrister Murtaza Wahab while speaking at a press conference at the Sindh Assembly building on Tuesday.

Barrister Wahab, who also acts as a spokesman for the Sindh government, was also accompanied on the occasion by Mines and Mineral Minister Mir Shabbir Bijarani. Wahab’s assertion about the testing capacity of the province came when the daily coronavirus record of the province showed a decrease in testing being conducted to detect COVID-19 cases. The record shared by the Chief Minister House with media shows that 3,384 tests were conducted on May 1, 3,259 tests were conducted on May 2, 3,032 tests were carried out on May 3, 2,571 tests were conducted on May 4, and 2,250 tests were conducted on May 5 in the province.

Wahab said a total of 13 clinical and research laboratories in the province were capable of doing 4,800 tests daily. He said the provincial government had been in the process of increasing its testing capacity. He said the government had established the country’s biggest clinical testing laboratory at the University of Karachi.

The adviser said the laboratory at the KU was able to conduct daily 800 corona tests ,while the provincial government had decided to increase its capacity to 2,400. He said the chief minister had released finances for the purpose.

He claimed that up to 90 per cent of testing being done by the government was free of charge. He said a helpline service of the government’s Health department was functional where people who might have developed symptoms of coronavirus could contact for testing. He said that the team of the health department would visit the house of a suspected case of the coronavirus to get the testing done.

The helpline service of the Sindh government could be approached at its numbers 021-99204452; 021-99206565; 0316-111712. Wahab claimed that there were 283 ventilators available in the government-run hospitals of the province. The provincial government would purchase 250 disposable ventilators while the health department would purchase another 163 ventilators. He said that at present 14 patients of the coronavirus had been on ventilators in the province.

He said the provincial government had established isolation wards at the Civil Hospital, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and Gadap Hospital in Karachi. Apart from this, a field isolation facility of 1,200 beds had been set up at the Expo Centre Karachi, while another such facility would be established at the PAF Museum. A 300-beded isolation facility has been functional in Hyderabad while similar isolation centres are being established in every district of the province.

Wahab said the report of an inquiry ordered by the CM to probe the death of Dr Furqan-ul-Haq, a former physician of the Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases, would be available by Wednesday.

He said the provincial government did need the support of the masses in winning its fight against the coronavirus. For this, the people needed to wear masks whenever they ventured out of homes, observe social distancing, and follow the stay-at-home directives of the provincial government.

He said the Sindh government had been acting upon the three-pronged strategy to deal with the issue of coronavirus, i.e. tracing, testing and treatment of COVID-19 patients. Apart from 3,056 testing kits, no funds had been so far been given by the federal government to Sindh for its fight against the coronavirus, he said.

The spokesman for the Sindh government claimed that the government had spent a sum of Rs1.8 billion on the distribution of food rations among 498,000 families in the province. He said the conflicting statements given by the prime minister had not been helpful in making the people obey the lockdown orders of the government.