With 27 more dying of Covid-19, Sindh reports highest number of single-day deaths since June

Since June 2020, Sindh has reported the highest number of deaths from Covid-19 as 27 coronavirus patients have passed away in a day.

The province’s death toll from the novel coronavirus had reached 2,962, said the Sindh chief minister on Tuesday.

Syed Murad Ali Shah said another 1,292 coronavirus cases had surfaced in the province when 9,752 samples were tested in a day, which meant the virus detection rate was 13.2 per cent.

In total, 1,994,516 tests have been conducted against which 175,642 cases have been detected in Sindh. However, 87 per cent or 153,642 patients have defeated the virus, including 1,043 who recovered yesterday.

Currently, 19,038 coronavirus patients are under treatment: 18,218 in home isolation, 12 at isolation centres and 808 at hospitals. The condition of 716 patients is stated to be critical, including 72 who are on ventilators.

Of the new 1,292 cases, 989 are from Karachi: 340 from District East, 243 from District South, 213 from District Central, 104 from District Malir, 63 from District Korangi and 26 from District West.

Hyderabad has reported 76 new cases, Mirpurkhas 36, Jamshoro 31, Matiari 21, Badin 18, Shaheed Benazirabad 14, Ghotki and Thatta 11 each, Sukkur nine, Tando Allahyar five, Jacobabad six, Larkana and Umerkot three each, Shikarpur two, and Dadu, Khairpur, Sanghar and Sujawal

one each.

The chief minister urged the people to observe all coronavirus-related SOPs, including wearing masks and ensuring social distancing.

Handover of bodies

The bodies of Covid-19 patients who die during treatment at the High Dependency Unit (HDU) of Field Isolation Centre at the Expo Center are still not being handed over to their families directly and instead, they are handed over to representatives of district health officers (DHOs), who shift them to the Edhi morgue, from where they are handed over to the families after ghusl and wrapped in a shroud, The News has learnt.

“The body of my mother, who had been under treatment at the Field Isolation Centre at the Expo Center, was handed over to a representative of the district health office instead of us. The administration said they were following the Sindh government’s SOPs and handing over the bodies to the district administration instead of relatives,” said Shakeel Ahmed, whose mother died of the coronavirus on Tuesday.

All hospitals where Covid-19 patients are dying have been handing over the bodies of the deceased directly to their relatives since May when the Sindh government revised its SOPs.

Ahmed deplored that although her mother died at around 6pm, the DHO representative came at least three-and-a-half hours late, and then the body was shifted to the Edhi Centre morgue, where it took a couple of more hours before it was finally ready for the funeral prayer and burial.

“This deprived us of the precious time and we now have to wait for the next day for the funeral prayer and burial,” he said.

An official of the Field Isolation Centre at the Expo Center said they were following the SOPs provided to them by the government, according to which, bodies should be handed over to the district administration, which would transport them to the Edhi Centre for ghusl and shrouding, after which it would be handed over to the relatives for the funeral prayer and burial.

“Some of the serious patients who were under treatment at the High Dependency Unit (HDU) died during treatment and, following the SOPs, we handed over the bodies to the district administration as per the SOPs,” the official said and added that if they received fresh instructions to hand over bodies directly to the families, they would start acting accordingly.

An official of the health department also confirmed that the administration of the Field Isolation Centre was not giving bodies of Covid-19 victims to the families directly unlike other health facilities in the province as per the old standard operating procedures.

He added that they would raise this issue with the authorities in the next meeting..