Dean Medical College, Aga Khan University of Health Sciences (AKUH) Dr Adil Haider has said COVID-19 is a new virus and can currently only be reliably diagnosed through a PCR based technique which requires a swab taken from the nose. He was addressing a news conference at AKUH here on Monday. CEO AKUH Shahgufta Hassan, Dr Asim, Dr Faisal Mahmood and others also accompanied him.

Dr Adil Haider said as the number of COVID-19 cases in Pakistan increase, our response to this global pandemic is critical.

"WHO's aim with COVID-19 response is to identify, isolate and care for patients quickly. This has guided The Aga Khan University (AKU)'s response as well," he added.

He said the COVID-19 disease outbreak is no different. When this disease outbreak first surfaced, our experts in Health Sciences, Infectious Diseases, Family Medicine, Emergency Medicine and Clinical Laboratories, among others, went into full-force, supported by our administrative leadership teams, to better understand the virus, epidemiology, patient management protocols and diagnosis.

He said the PCR based technique is the trusted and recommended standard COVID-19 test by the World Health Organisation (WHO). "Any other technique, such as blood based antibody testing may provide an indirect measure of exposure to the virus but should not be used in isolation and can provide incorrect results," he said.

He said while the country-wide COVID-19 response plans were being worked upon, in January 2020, in an attempt to make the COVID-19 PCR test available in Pakistan, the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi Laboratory experts imported certain reagents and equipment, worked on a testing regimen and was able to make a reliable test to diagnose COVID-19.

He said AKUH Clinical Laboratories acts as international reference labs and insists on high quality materials to ensure high levels of test result accuracy, guided by the world class accreditations it has from the Joint Commission International as well as the College of American Pathologists. This was critical at this stage because testing kits were not yet available in Pakistan, so this effort was undertaken to make available the very critical testing ability, that that country did not have at that time.

He said in the case of the COVID-19 PCR test, the charge of Rs 7,900 covers only the cost of conducting the test and required reagents; AKUH, Karachi is not profiting from the COVID-19 PCR tests.

He said the COVID-19 screening, testing and treatment protocol followed by the AKUH is the same protocol that is being followed world-wide. Screening is a technique used in medicine to determine the likelihood of a person having a disease. This includes a set of questions which have been designed as per the guidelines set by WHO and at AKUH Karachi screening for COVID-19 is done at the Community Health Centre (CHC), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Due to a shortage of testing kits, tests across Pakistan are only being performed on PUIs or Persons Under Investigation. These are people who meet both the below criteria.