Sharif needs to go abroad for treatment: medical board head

Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif needs to go abroad for treatment as he is facing a major genetic issue, the head of a medical board looking after his treatment was quoted as saying by a media report.

Sharif, 69, was admitted to the Services Hospital on October 22 from Pakistan's anti-graft body's custody after his platelets dropped to a critical low level of 2,000.

Sharif will be discharged and transferred to Sharif Medical City, a medical college in Lahore, on Wednesday.

Hospital sources earlier claimed that the former prime minister had been discharged from the hospital where he had been undergoing medical treatment since the past two weeks, Dawn newspaper reported.

According to the report, Sharif delayed his discahrge from the hospital so that he could leave with his daughter, who has also been under treatment at the same hospital since October 23.

Maryam is awaiting her release in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills corruption case after the Lahore Hight Court granted her bail on Monday.

According to Geo News, hospital sources claimed that Nawaz and Mahmood Ayaz, the head of the medical board which was formed to look after the former prime minister's medical treatment, spoke to each other.

Nawaz Sharif needs to go abroad for treatment, Ayaz said.

"Health department should talk to us," he said, adding the medical board set up for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader's treatment would give in writing that he should undergo genetic test from abroad.

Ayaz said the foreign visit would become essential if doctors want to examine his body tissues in order to diagnose the exact cause of his illness.

He said that the PML-N leader was not facing a minor genetic issue.

At the time of his hospitalisation, Sharif was diagnosed with acute immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), a bleeding disorder in which the immune system destroys platelets.

Sharif was in the Kot Lakhpat jail but last month he was sent to the custody of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) which is probing the Sharif family in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case.

On December 24, 2018, an accountability court had sentenced Nawaz Sharif to seven years in prison in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills corruption case and acquitted him in the Flagship case.

In a short verdict announced, the court said there was concrete evidence against the former premier in the Al-Azizia case and that he was unable to provide a money trail in the case.