Rs7b given to health dept to contain coronavirus outbreak

Staff Reporter
The Sindh government has released Rs7 billion to the health department to ensure it lacks no resources to contain the outbreak of the coronavirus. The amount was supposed to be given in second and third quarterly installments, but were given all at once on Wednesday. Of the total amount, Rs4 billion will be used to buy medicines while the other amount will be used to purchase oil for generators and vehicles. The provincial government says the amount is adequate to deal with any emergency that may take place. Meanwhile, overall 863 samples were tested in the Sindh for coronavirus and of them, 38 tested positive in Karachi while the remaining 143 confirmed cases were of the pilgrims who arrived from Taftan border in Sukkur, bringing the total provincial tally to 181. The figures were given during a briefing to the task force meeting of the Sindh province chaired by Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and attended by Mayor Waseem Akhtar, provincial ministers and other officials. It was briefed that a total of 573 patients underwent the test in Sindh province of which only 38 tested positive for the virus. “The remaining 535 samples were declared negative,” it said. Furthermore, 290 samples were collected from the pilgrims who arrived from Taftan Border at a quarantine facility in Sukkur and after tests, it was found that 143 of them were carrying the virus while the remaining 147 samples tested negative. It was briefed that some suspected cases are also admitted to private hospitals and tests were performed on them. “We are waiting for results from there,” the meeting was briefed. It was informed that there were 42 scheduled flights at the Jinnah International Airport Karachi on Wednesday of which 16 have been cancelled. Earlier, around 600 pilgrims from Taftan border crossing reached quarantine center at Labour Colony in Sukkur. More pilgrims who had returned Pakistan from Iran at Taftan border in Balochistan have reached in more than 15 buses to Sukkur where the Sindh government has established a quarantine center to accommodate them for screening and taking samples for diagnosis of the novel coronavirus.