Coronavirus: Abbottabad admin searching for 700 overseas travellers

ABBOTTABAD: The district administration is searching for 700 people who have traveled from different countries to the district during March.

As many as 28 suspects of COVID-19 were hospitalised but no positive case has so far been reported. Ironically, no laboratory test facility has been established anywhere in Hazara division, including Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad.

Deputy Commissioner Abbottabad Mughees Sanaullah confirmed to The News that Immigration Department has shared data with the district administration and as per the data, 1500 people have moved to Abbottabad from overseas.

He said that more than 800 people have been traced so far from the data shared by immigration authorities and claimed that no one was found positive among them.

He expressed the hope that different teams have been engaged to trace the remaining lot in the next 24 hours. He said that not a single case was found positive in Abbottabad district except one Dr Javed Alam who had travelled from the US and currently residing in Swat.

After knowing his background, he was quarantined at his residence and also all the places he had visited were disinfected including ATM of a bank, a bakery at Mansehra road and the street at Jinnah Abad where he has been residing. Javed Alam, a confirmed case of COVID-19, returned from the US on March 20 and was tested in Peshawar. later, he stayed in Swat for four days. He reached Abbottabad on March 24 and visited a local bakery, which has now been sealed. The district administration sealed the area and disinfected a road as well. Similarly, another female from Orush colony, who recently came back from Umrah, was rushed to ATH in critical condition.

No laboratory testing facility exists in any hospital in Hazara. Presently tests are being sent to the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad and Khyber Medical University (KMU), Peshawar where more than three days are spent on the results, causing prolonged stay of the suspects in the isolation.

Dr Umer Farooq, dean Ayub Medical College, said that a total of 28 suspected cases were admitted in Ayub Teaching Hospital, none of which has so far been declared positive. He said that 12 cases were declared negative while 16 cases were pending.

He told that ATH has 71 isolation rooms, with central oxygen supply, 12 ventilators, 12 anesthesia machines (can be used as ventilators), Maternal and Child Health Center dedicated for COVID -19, more than 700 doctors including 150 consultants and 500 nurses. Meanwhile, “Azans” were also called from different mosques of the city and from roofs of houses late Wednesday night to seek God’s blessings and protection against coronavirus.