Health experts puzzled as Pakistan’s corona cases fall

LAHORE: Six months after the coronavirus arrived in Pakistan, the country appears to have dodged the worst of the pandemic, baffling health experts and dampening fears its crowded urban areas and ramshackle hospitals will be overrun.

Following an initial surge, the number of infections has plummeted in recent weeks, with COVID-19 deaths hovering in the single digits each day, while neighbouring India tallies hundreds of fatalities.

Pakistan has a long history of failing to contain myriad infectious diseases such as polio, tuberculosis, and hepatitis, while successive governments have underfunded its healthcare sector for decades. Added to that, many Pakistanis live in crowded, multi-generational homes or packed apartment buildings that favour rampant virus transmission.

"No one has been able to explain this decline... We don't have any concrete explanation," said Salman Haseeb, a doctor at Services Hospital in the eastern city of Lahore. Pakistanis have proposed numerous hypotheses for their country's seeming ability to weather the pandemic, crediting everything from the young population and the hot and humid climate to unproven claims of natural immunity.

Its median age is only 22 and the coronavirus is known to disproportionately impact older people with prior health complications. In comparison, Italy, with a median age of 46.5, has recorded more than 35,000 deaths, while Pakistan's official toll is about 6,300.

To date, the South Asian nation has confirmed more than 295,000 infections and currently is recording a few hundred new cases per day. Observers say that with only limited testing the true number of infections is likely considerably higher. One testing exercise in Lahore suggested as many as seven percent of the city's population had been exposed to the virus.

But anecdotal evidence from hospitals across Pakistan supports the downward trend. While healthcare facilities were initially swamped, doctors across Pakistan told AFP they are now no longer seeing a coronavirus-related rush on emergency services.

"Regardless of the reasons, the good thing is the first wave of the virus is almost over in Pakistan," said Khizer Hayat, a doctor at Nishtar hospital in the central city of Multan. "The situation is now under control and the number of coronavirus cases is dropping, the wards are emptying. It's hard to know why."