Rickshaws stand idle at a stand in North Nazimabad on Thursday. The vehicles are available for rent to drivers, but due to reduced demand due to the partial lockdown there are few takers.— Fahim Siddiqi/White Star

KARACHI: The Sindh government, owing to the ongoing partial lockdown in the province, has decided to distribute two million ration bags among the deserving people so that they do not go hungry.

This decision was taken in a high-level meeting held with Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in the chair here at the CM House.

The meeting was attended by senior civil and military leaders of the province.

At the outset, the CM briefed the meeting about the measures the provincial government had taken to contain spread of the coronavirus. “With the closure of shopping malls, restaurants or what it is being termed partial lockdown, we have tried to slow down the spread so that necessary arrangements for establishing isolation centres and field hospitals could be made accordingly,” he said.

Corps Commander Humayun Aziz appreciated efforts of the provincial government and emphasised the need for providing ration to daily wagers and other poor people so that their food needs could be met.

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The chief minister said that he had already held a number of meetings with the philanthropists, non-governmental organisations such as Edhi, Saylani and others to seek their help and guidance for preparation of ration bags and development of a mechanism to provide ration bags to the needy and deserving people.

The CM and the corps commander decided to constitute a committee under Labour Minister Saeed Ghani with Commissioner of Karachi Iftikhar Shallwani and additional secretary for health Aleem Lashari, while Brig Sami and his two team members would be on the committee. The committee would decide the quantity of food items for ration and then develop a mechanism for their distribution.

A warehouse to store ration bags would be established from where onward supply of the bags all over Sindh would be made. The quality of food items and their quantity as agreed by the committee would be ensured. However, it was decided that the ration bags would have one-month supplies.

It was also decided that the house where ration bags would be supplied would be marked as `supplied’ so that duplication could be avoided. It was also decided that a helpline would be set up where deserving people would get themselves registered for ration bags and then after necessary verification ration bags would be supplied to them.

Isolation centre at Expo Centre

The meeting also decided that a 10,000-bed isolation centre and field hospital would be established at the Expo Centre with the support of Corps 5.

In the first phase one hall of the Expo Centre would be converted into and isolation centre and then more halls would be acquired. In the first hall beds, medicines, necessary equipment, posting of doctors and paramedical staff would be made available.

The CM said that the Sindh government made over 16,000 swabs/VTMs and 13,000 kits available to test coronavirus infection in the province. “But, we will have to enhance our testing capacity which is limited to only 600.”

Rs7.21bn released

The chief minister released Rs7.21 billion — Rs6.9 billion to the health department and the rest of the amount to the commissioner of Sukkur — to contain and combat the COVID-19 threat.

“I’ll make more funds available to contain, curb and combat the threat of coronavirus, but this will be possible when we all work together with spirit,” he said.

Presiding over the 22nd meeting of the task force on coronavirus here at the CM House, the chief minister said he had released Rs6.9bn to the health department for the purchase of medicines, equipment, generators, diet charges, sanitisers, kits and swabs.

He said he had released Rs16.7 million and another Rs15.1m to the commissioner of Sukkur for the preparation of an isolation centre in Labour Colony, purchase of equipment, hiring of vehicles, food charges and proper care of pilgrims arriving there from Taftan in two phases.

New pilgrims

The chief minister was told that 757 new pilgrims from Taftan had arrived. The commissioner of Sukkur said that so far 180 samples of newly arrived pilgrims were taken and sent to Karachi for test.

Another batch of 88 pilgrims reached Larkana from Taftan and they were kept in the isolation centre at the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto University, Arija Campus, Larkana.

The chief minister directed the health department to send them swabs and kits to test the pilgrims.

The health department has conducted 1,018 tests of the suspected patients, of them 952 were declared negative and 66 positive. A total of 302 pilgrims from Taftan/Sukkur were tested; of them 151 appeared to be negative and another 151 positive.

The details of 66 cases, including 64 under treatment, are as follows:

Eight cases have the travel history of Syria, three of Dubai, four of Iran, 40 local, one Qatar, six Saudi Arabia, one Turkey and two of Switzerland.

Testing capacity

The health department told the chief minister that on his instruction the testing capacity had been increased. The Indus Hospital has increased its capacity from 200 to 800, Ziauddin Hospital 50 tests, SIUT up to 100 tests a day, Ojha Campus up to 100 a day and the Aga Khan Hospital 200 tests. In this way the capacity has gone up from 400 to 1,250 tests a day. However, he directed the PPHI and government hospitals/DHQs to explore ways and means to start testing facility.

A 23-bed isolation centre has been created at the SIUT.

Suspected patients

The meeting was told that the Sindh government hospitals reported 1,874 suspected patients with pneumonia symptoms; of them 43 were with severe symptoms and their samples had been sent for test. The private hospitals reported 702 suspected cases; of them 33 samples had been taken for test.

Flights

The airport authorities told the chief minister that 24 flights were scheduled on Thursday, of which 10 were cancelled and the remaining flights brought 3,209 passengers to the city.

All the passengers were screened and one of them was suspected to be a corona patient and his sample was taken and result is pending.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2020