STAFF REPORTER
ISLAMABAD Chairman of Prime Minister ’s National Task Force on Science and Technology Prof Dr Atta-urRahman said on Sunday that he forsees the coronavirus situation getting worse in the country if the government does not ramp up testing of suspected patients. “The government should carry out testing for 30,000-40,000 patients on a daily basis. So far we see merely 2,000-3,000 being tested,” he said, in a conversation with the media. “The data coming in of patients across the country is not indicative of the true picture. The real number of patients is much higher.” Dr Rahman said that under the supervision of Lahore’s University of Health Sciences Vice Chancellor Dr Javed Akram, a series of clinical trials of a few drugs will begin nextweek. He said that the form the disease has taken in Pakistan will become evident in the next 10 days. Reiterating the need for testing, Dr Rahman said that the disease is “rapidly spreading like wildfire” and had brought even nations like the United States “to its knees”. Speaking of the need for stringent containment measures to defeat the spread of the virus, he said that people who are leaving their homes without a good reason “should be thrown into jails”. “If we don’t take strict action now, things could get out of hand,” he said. While praying that he is proven wrong, Dr Rahman cautioned that things will get much worse than we can anticipate and once more emphasised on the need for stricter quarantine measures and greater testing capacity to be implemented by the government.
