Single COVID-19 patient infects 27 others in Pak's Gujrat

A man who tested positive for the novel coronavirus has reportedly infected 27 others in Gujrat district of Pakistan in yet another case of mishandling of confirmed virus patients and increasing local transmission.

In a related development, panic-stricken doctors of Shaikh Zayed Hospital Lahore's gynae ward withdrew their services after a pregnant woman, who underwent C-Section at the facility on Thursday, tested positive for the virus on Friday night, the Dawn reported.

It has created further anxiety among doctors and paramedics in the hospital when they came to know that the woman's husband, who was accompanying her was also a patient of Covid-19 and that test reports of another suspected patient under treatment at the hospital for the last five days showed he was positive for the virus.

The infected woman and her newborn baby have been isolated at the Services Hospital where the doctors also sent swabs of the one-day-old baby for diagnosis.

In Gujrat district, the tally of confirmed COVID-19 patients jumped to 51 after 27 new patients were reported on Saturday.

Health authorities were alarmed to find that one of these four patients had contacted at least 40 people. Officials have sent their samples for tests and out of the 27 have turned out to be positive for the disease. After the confirmation, they all were isolated either at their homes, or nearby hospitals.

Given the worrying situation, the government has launched a high-level probe into the spread of the virus in Gujrat directing the deputy commissioner to supervise its process.

Pakistan has 1,526 cases with 570 cases in Punjab, 469 in Sindh, 188 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 138 in Balochistan, 118 in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK)/Gilgit Baltistan and 43 in Islamabad.