—Sindh govt establishes lab at KU with initial testing capacity of 800
KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Syed Murad Ali Shah on Thursday said that Karachi, for the second consecutive day, produced a great number of coronavirus cases produced by local transmissions, taking the provincial total to 289 in the 24 hours from his last video message.
“The cases emerged when 3,373 people were tested. Out of these, 202 cases are from Karachi alone whereas the worst affected districts are South, Central, Malir, East and Korangi,” he added.
About the death toll, the Sindh CM told that four more patients had succumbed to the infection taking the death toll to 73 in the province, making 1.98 per cent of the total cases.
Of the current situation, he said that out of 2,934 patients under treatment, 1,871 were in home isolation, 649 at Isolation Centers and 423 in different hospitals.
It may be mentioned here that so far, 33,028 tests have been conducted in Sindh against which 3,671 cases have been diagnosed as positive.
Talking about Karachi, Shah said that 202 cases had been detected in the city, including 67 in South, 79 Malir, 29 central, 25 East, Korangi 19 and six in West. At present, District Central has 436 cases, East 491, Korangi 250, Malir 234, South 646 and West 273 cases. “In this way, Karachi has 2,330 coronavirus positive cases,” he added.
Similarly, Badin has 11 cases with two new cases, Dadu has 14 with two new cases, Ghotki has 122 with one new case, Hyderabad has 231 and no new case, Jacobabad has nine cases with no new case, Jamshoro has 14 cases with no new case, Qambar at Shahdadkot has only one case, Khairpur Mirs has 166 with new one case, Larkana has 86 with 11 new cases, and Matiari has only one case.
Mirpurkhas has six cases, Naushehroferoze 19 with new five cases, Sanghar 19 with one new case, Shaheed Benazirabad 82 with 10 new cases, Shikarpur has only six cases.
Sujawal has 11 cases with one new case, Sukkur has 363 with 25 new cases, Tando Allahyar has six cases, Tando Mohammad Khan has 33 cases. Tharparkar has only four cases, Thatta has four cases, Omarkot four and 14 cases are under tracking.
Sharing the data of stranded Pakistanis who had returned to Karachi, the chief minister said that all 913 citizens who had been repatriated were tested; as a result, 98 positive cases had been identified and put under treatment. Out of these, 22 patients are under treatment in Ramada hotel and the others are at Expo Center and in Malir.
Meanwhile, the Sindh government announced that it has established the country’s largest Bio-safety Level-III (BSL-III) laboratory at International Center for Chemical and Biological Science, the University of Karachi which has a capacity of testing 2,400 per day.
The lab has been established by transforming the National Institute of Virology. “For the purpose, BSL-III has been completed and equipped for the testing machines and housed with trained staff,” Shah said, adding the initial capacity of the lab was testing 800 samples per day and within three weeks the capacity of the lab would be enhanced to 2,400 tests per day.
The chief minister said that RNA extraction and RT-PCR kits were being provided to Director of the centre Prof. Dr
Iqbal Choudhry, for staring tests. “This is not only big news but good news and finally the government has established the largest testing facility in the public sector,” Syed Murad Ali Shah said.
Speaking about the repatriated citizens, the chief minister said that his government was taking proper care of the Pakistanis returning to Karachi.
“These citizens include 5,102 Tabligh-e-Jamaat members, all of whom have been tested. The results showed that 764 were positive, 4,321 negatives while the result of 17 samples is yet to come,” he said.
