Coronavirus: Healthcare facilities struggle to arrange kits for patients' screening

With the declaration of novel coronavirus a global emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO), public and private sector healthcare facilities are struggling to manage the testing kits to screen the patients carrying symptoms of deadly virus, Business Recorder has learnt. "The only option we have is to keep them in quarantine," Masooma Raza, an official at Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) told this correspondent.

Coronavirus has been declared a global emergency by the WHO, citing the reason that outbreak continues to spread outside China. Some 213 people in the China have died from the virus with almost 10,000 cases nationally.

Masooma said the hospital management is in contact with international health agencies to get testing kits but at this point in time the suspected patients are being kept in isolation.

The most recent case is of the student Arsalan who, a resident of Lyari, arrived from Wuhan, China. He was given clearance for coronavirus from the Chinese government before being allowed to travel to Pakistan. However, the Arslan got himself admitted in the private hospital as the sources said that the student has been kept in quarantine.

Official of the health department of Sindh said the department is in touch with him and would be monitoring him from time to time to make sure he has no symptoms of the virus.

She said that Arsalan's blood samples were taken and sent to National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad, denying the reports that the Arslan was kept in quarantine.

"He is not admitted in a hospital. Only his sample was taken that is also because we asked him to get the sample done at either JPMC or AKUH. We can't put him in isolation at the moment because he has been cleared by Chinese authorities," she added.

Sources said the authorities concerned in Sindh have declared Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi, JPMC, DUHS-Ojha Hospital and AKUH as focal points, where suspected coronavirus cases could be presented for initial treatment, and if needed any of them can be shifted to one of the six tertiary care hospitals across the province.

Dr Qaisar Sajjad, Secretary General of Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) urged the government to immediately evacuate Pakistani Students who don't have respiratory infection.

They [the students], he said, could be scanned for coronavirus in china and shift to Pakistan and could be rescanned in Pakistan also. He said students and their families are in deep agony and mentally disturbed.

Executive Director JPMC Dr Seemin Jamali stressed that all people who come from China should be quarantined as she felt that it's the only way to control the spread of the virus or be confined to some specific area.

Meanwhile, health experts have also warned that asymptomatic patients could also transmit the virus.