Zubair Quireshi
Sunday turned out to be an ominous day for doctors’ community of Islamabad as a senior histopathologist at the Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) Hospital Dr Umar Farooq Barki breathed his last while another at the Children Hospital of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Dr Manzoor was put on ventilator upon deteriorating health condition.
According to the PIMS spokesperson, Dr Waseem Khwaja, currently 60 patients at the PIMS Isolation Ward are in critical condition and doctors have put them on ventilators keeping in view their health condition.
The Federal Capital on Sunday reported 126 new cases of Covid-19 cases in the last twenty-four hours that took the overall tally of cases to 38,146 while three new deaths in the same period made the total toll 424.
According to the National Health Service Regulation & Coordination Ministry, so far 34,940 patients in Islamabad have qualified to be categorized as the recovered cases from coronavirus.
A day earlier, the Islamabad Health department had conducted 3,891 tests resulting 132 new cases and according to the District Health Officer (DHO) of Islamabad Dr Zaeem Zia positivity rate in the federal capital hovers over 3.3 percent.
Meanwhile, Rawalpindi saw a significant fall in the number of daily Covid-19 patients as 16 cases were reported in Rawalpindi in last twenty-four hours. However, three people lost their struggle against the virus.
Jamila Khatoon, 87, a resident of Dhoke Farman Ali, breathed her last at Rawalpindi Institute of Urology (RIU) where she was admitted on Dec 29.
Arif Qureshi, 66, a resident of Park Valley Bahria Town, also died at RIU on Saturday where he had been under treatment since Dec 14.
Syed Riaz Hussain, 85, from Murree, arrived at Pims on Jan 1 but died late Friday night.
The garrison city has 893 active patients at present out of whom 359 were being treated at hospitals and 534 had been isolated at home. As many as 419 suspected patients are waiting for their results.
Since March, 12,898 people have contracted the virus in Rawalpindi district, 11,457 recovered and 548 passed away.
The number of Covid-19 patients has been decreasing during the last one week in the district but there has been no let-up in casualties as three or more patients are dying on a daily basis.
Commissioner of Rawalpindi Capt (R) Mohammad Mehmood said that the number of patients had fallen but there was still a need to adopt safety measures, adding the district administrations were working on creating awareness among people to follow health guidelines.
He said the number of patients had, however, increased slightly in Jhelum and Chakwal compared to Rawalpindi and Attock as 16 people tested positive in Rawalpindi and two in Attock whereas 21 got infected in Jhelum and 18 in Chakwal.
