ISLAMABAD: While the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called on countries to test every suspected case and isolate confirmed Covid-19 patients to contain the transmission, the government policy of ‘rational use’ of testing kits is believed to have resulted in spread of the deadly virus in some areas.

Since the last week of February, 55,000 people have been tested for coronavirus across the country.

A resident of Tramri area in Islamabad was one of the many suspected patients at hospitals in the federal capital who were advised to return home and wait until all symptoms appear to become eligible for test. As the infected patient could not be tested, a number of residents including shopkeepers contracted the virus and the whole street was eventually sealed.

Another resident, Mubashir Ahmed, narrated in a video statement that his father had cough last month and within a few days his mother also started coughing. “Later I also had cough due to which I decided to get ourselves tested for Covid-19. On March 25, I went to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and requested doctors to test us for the virus. Dr Saad Ali examined us, suggested X-rays and finally said that we should not be worried. So we returned home. We did not recover and later my wife also had flu due to which on March 30 I decided to go to another hospital. We all, including my wife, went to Benazir Bhutto Hospital in Rawalpindi, but once again doctors told us that we don’t need to be tested,” he said.

Later, he added, he took his father to Atomic Energy Hospital where doctors immediately recommended test for his father. And finally, the finding showed that he had contracted the disease. “It is unfortunate that no one bothered to test us and today the whole street has been sealed due to a number of positive cases,” he said.

A resident of Islamabad’s I-10 sector, Shahid Nazir, said both of his sons started coughing with an interval of two days. “I took them to Pims but doctors suggested them to wait, explaining that in most cases patients have seasonal flu and cough. My sons recovered after another week, but I am unaware if they had contracted Covid-19 or not as they were not tested,” he said.

Doctors appointed at Covid-19 centres in government hospitals try to avoid testing the suspects until it is almost confirmed through symptoms. Because of this policy, a number of infected patients remain undetected and finally become carriers for further spread of the disease.

Another example is of a female patient who was shifted to hospital last month, but doctors at Pims refused to admit her. Finally the family approached their relative, who was in a sensitive organization, to get the patient admitted.

Pims media coordinator Dr Waseem Khawaja told Dawn that it was not possible to test everyone. “So far we have received over 2,000 patients who suspected that they had Covid-19, but we tested only 300 of them and only 45 of them were found positive,” he said.

Dr Khawaja said: “People need to understand that only a doctor can decide who should be tested. Those with cough should go in isolation and contact the hospital if symptoms continue for over five days.”

Talking to Dawn, Pims Executive Director Dr Ansar Maxood said he also watched the video statement of a patient and directed the department concerned to look into it.

“As coronavirus and some other diseases have similar symptoms, initially we had a policy that only those suspects who had a travel history should be tested. Later when local transmission started, the policy was changed due to which those who are contacts of patients are also being tested,” he said.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2020