Civil Hospital suspends OPD service as 1,732 new Covid-19 patients detected in Karachi

Sindh’s largest public sector hospital — Dr Ruth KM Pfau Civil Hospital, Karachi — on Monday suspended its out-patient department (OPD) consultations for unspecified period due to the rising Covid-19 spread in the city.

The administration of the Civil hospital said that due to the increasing number of healthcare workers getting infected with Covid-19, they were suspending OPD consultations of eye, dentistry, ENT, surgical, orthopaedic and skin departments for unspecified period.

The hospital has already suspended all the elective surgeries except in emergencies to prevent its surgeons and other staff from contracting the infectious diseases.

Seven die in Sindh

The viral disease claimed seven more lives in the province during the previous 24 hours, raising the death toll to 5,840 in the province. In the meantime, 1,144 patients were under treatment at different hospitals, of whom the condition of 1,024 was said to be critical with 77 of them shifted onto ventilators. This was stated by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Monday in his daily statement on the pandemic situation in Sindh.

In addition to seven deaths, 2,153 more people tested positive for Covid-19 in the province, including 1,732 in Karachi alone, after 16,975 tests were conducted in the province, the CM said, adding that with 5,840 deaths, the Covid-19 fatality rate remained at 1.6 per cent in the province.

Shah said the detection of 2,153 cases through 16,975 samples constituted a 12.7 per cent current detection rate. He added that so far 4,908,697 tests had been conducted in Sindh, against which 369,228 cases were diagnosed, of which 87.8 per cent or 324,206 patients had recovered, including 621 during the previous 24 hours.

The CM said there were currently 39,182 patients infected with the novel coronavirus in Sindh. Of them, 37,971 were in home isolation, 67 at isolation centres and 1,144 at different hospitals. According to Shah, of the 2,153 new cases in Sindh, 1,732 were detected from Karachi, including 537 from District South, 520 from District East, 307 from District Central, 124 from District West, 123 from District Malir and 121 from District Korangi.

In the rest of Sindh, Hyderabad had 149 new cases, Thatta 59, Naushehro Feroz 30, Tharparkar 29, Sukkur 28, Sanghar 26, Badin 24, Tando Allahyar 20, Tando Muhammad Khan 19, Jamshoro seven, Khairpur, Mirpurkhas and Shaheed Benazirabad four each, Ghotki three, Larkana two and Shikarpur had one new case.