KARACHI: Sindh's testing capacity is higher than other provinces in the country with 12,004 tests conducted per million throughout the province on Monday, provincial government's spokesperson Murtaza Wahab said.
Wahab, while presenting a provincial comparison in a tweet, said there were 5,427 tests carried out per million in Punjab, 4,952 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 4,348 in Balochistan.
He added the Sindh government was working hard to prevent the virus while other provinces had less testing capacity due to which fewer cases were being reported.
“We need to make a concerted effort to prevent the spread of the corona virus as the corona virus epidemic has taken a global toll,” Wahab said.
A day earlier, Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah had said it was too soon for Pakistan to declare victory over the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking to the media in Karachi, Shah had thanked the other three provinces — Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Punjab — as well as Prime Minister Imran Khan for taking steps for prevention from the deadly coronavirus. "I had earlier stressed that the pandemic would spread but it could be stopped," he had said.
"We controlled the pandemic to some extent through the efforts we took. There were some challenges earlier when people were unable to get bed-space in hospitals.
"We made [designated] spaces in hospital for coronavirus patients," he had added, noting that the coronavirus testing in Sindh was double that of the other provinces.
The chief minister had underlined that the Sindh government had only achieved a little bit of the success that it was aiming for.
"It is difficult to control coronavirus until a vaccine is developed," Shah had said.
Murad said he was not satisfied with the current testing levels in Sindh. "We have 11,268 beds," he added.
"I feel like we are declaring victory over coronavirus too early. We made preparations but I am not completely satisfied," he said.