14 more die as death toll from corona reaches 1,577 in KP

PESHAWAR: Fourteen more people, including a 1st year student of Khyber Girls Medical College (KGMC), died of coronavirus in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday, taking the toll from the infectious disease in the province to 1577.

The second wave of infectious disease is proving quite fatal in the country and particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and has surprisingly affected people of all age groups. Sana Riaz has become the second medical student, who died of coronavirus in the province. Before her, a 3rd-year student of Khyber Medical College (KMC) had died of the infectious disease. He belonged to the Fatehpur area in Swat.

She was admitted to the Northwest General Hospital in Peshawar where she couldn’t recover from the viral infection. Dean KGMC Prof Zahid Aman has expressed his shock over her loss.

He said Sana Riaz was a brilliant student of the college and her death had saddened all the faculty members, students and other staff of the medical college. The rise in cold waves has been contributing to increase in transmission of the viral infection in the province.

Most of the patients are referred to Peshawar from the periphery and the three hospitals - Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and the Hayatabad Medical Complex - are under immense pressure these days.

Almost all ventilators and oxygen beds are occupied by the Covid patients. According to officials of the three tertiary care hospitals in Peshawar, in some of the hospitals such as Mardan Medical Complex, Qazi Hussain Ahmad Hospital Nowshera, Bacha Khan Medical Complex Swabi, and the tribal districts of Khyber, Mohmand and Bajaur, the patients are not taken care of and straightaway sent to Peshawar for treatment, which is even supposed to be available in tehsil level hospitals.

“I am wondering why the government is heavily spending resources in tertiary care hospitals like Mardan, Nowshera and Swabi where most patients are referred to Peshawar without even bothering to take history of the patients.

The government must take notice of this issue as the three hospitals in Peshawar alone would no longer take this burden,” a senior official of LRH told The News. Meanwhile, of 14 fatalities on Wednesday, 10 were reported from Peshawar alone.

One died each in Nowshera, Mansehra, Haripur and Kohat. In KP, Peshawar has suffered more human losses than any other districts. It has lost 773 people to the viral infection and recorded 21,957 positive cases till date.

Peshawar is followed by Abbottabad, with 131 human losses. Swat with 107 fatalities is third in the province. Meanwhile, the Peshawar district administration declared more areas under smart lockdown in the city, which, it felt, would help control transmission of the virus.

The smart lockdown was put in place in Street No 2, Sector F-VI, Phase-VI, Hayatabad and certain other places in Peshawar. Many people and government officials had already rejected the idea of putting barriers in the areas under smart lockdown and forcing the population to use one route for entry and exit, saying the government itself was compelling people to gather in once place and this can spread the virus.