KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has decided to convert 8,672 isolation beds into high dependency unit (HDU) beds and to purchase more ventilators and HDU beds with low and high oxygen arrangements.
The chief minister was presiding over a Covid-19 taskforce here at the CM House. The meeting was attended by ministers of health, local government, education, E&T, law adviser, mayor Karachi, chief secretary, ACS home, PSCM, DG Rangers, IGP Sindh, Brig Hussain of Corps 5, commissioner Karachi, provincial secretaries, representatives of WHO, FIA, Pakistan Navy, UNICEF, Dr Faisal, Dr Bari, Mushtaq Chhapra and other concerned.
It may be noted that at present the Sindh government has 503 ICU beds with ventilators and 1810 HDU beds.
Murad Shah said his government has tested 300,247 samples from June 1 to July 23 and found 62,476 positive cases of Covid-19 while during the corresponding period, Punjab conducted 286,049 tests and detected 54,057 cases, KP 93,377 tests and 17,479 positive cases, Islamabad 90,557 tests and 10,703 positive, Gilgit-Baltistan 5,100 tests and detected 825 cases, Balochistan 26,008 cases and detected 6,324 positive cases and AJK performed 10,351 tests and detected 959 cases. "This shows the Sindh government compared to other province has performed better."
The chief minister said the comparison with other provinces was not aimed at criticizing them but it was being made to assess and evaluate the performance of the Sindh government. He added that during June 1 to July 3, some 28 deaths were reported in AJK, 75 in Balochistan, 17 in GB, 102 in Islamabad, 529 in KP, 1347 in Punjab and 987 in Sindh. "This is clear that our death rate is lower in term of patients and population than the province," he said and added the recovery rate in Sindh was better than the others provinces such as during the said period 518 patients recovered in AJK, 3824 in Balochistan, 689 in GB, 8441 in Islamabad, 12608 KP, 35,833 Punjab and 37,098 in Sindh. "Our fatality rate has been recorded at 1.57 percent, while Punjab has 2.49 percent, KPK 3.03 percent, Gilgit Baltistan 2.06 percent, Balochistan 1.19 percent and AJK 2.2 percent. "If fatality rate is compared keeping in view the number of patients and population of the province, Sindh has the lowest rate because of a better healthcare system," he said.
Giving comparative analytics of tests per million population Shah said Sindh government has edge over other countries of the region. He said we [Sindh] have tested 10,047 people per million while Pakistan's per million tests came to 6115, India 6737, Bangladesh 4981, Sri Lanka 5160 and Afghanistan 1908.
He said the testing capacity which was only 80 per day in Feb, was increased to 300, then to 1200, 4200, 6500, 8750, 11450 and now 14,050 which itself was a record of a provincial government with meager resources.
Sindh CM giving analysis of three weeks of June said in the second week of June, 51,086 samples were tested which detected 15,221 cases and cured 8,916 patients. In third week of June 67,534 samples were tested which diagnosed 15,095 cases and cured 10,702 patients. In the fourth week of June 34,344 samples were tested which produced 7,975 cases and cured 7,110 patients. Talking about the first week of July, Shah said 18,934 samples were tested which detected 4,806 cases and cured 3,988. This shows that we kept enhancing testing capacity, educated people about the SOPs and succeeded in bringing down the detection rate and enhancing the recovery rate. "This is the success story of our policy and better healthcare system," he said.
Talking about challenges, Murad Ali Shah said under current prevalence, it was impossible to predict how many cases were actually there in a defined geographical area. Majority of cases are asymptomatic (more than 80 percent), he said and added every country has faced issues to implement SOPs and relaxation follow up.
The CM said we could not screen everybody, therefore, adopted a policy of targeted screening. He added that one-time screening was not an option but with continued exposure, one-time screening could never be sufficient. "We don't have unlimited resources, therefore we have to allocate resources where minimum expend on health could be ensured.
The CM urged health minister to take necessary measures to reduce death from strokes, pulmonary embolism and seizures.
Covid-19 situation report: Earlier, sharing a daily coronavirus situation report, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said that 42 more patients died lifting the death toll to 1501 while 1585 new cases emerged when 10718 samples were tested raising the tally to 92306.
He said that overnight 42 patients lost their lives while struggling against the virus. Now the number of patients died due to coronavirus has reached to 1501 which constituted 1.6 percent death ratio.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020