Authorities isolate suspected coronavirus patient in Peshawar

PESHAWAR: An individual, who recently returned from China, has been moved to an isolation ward in a Peshawar hospital after authorities suspected that he may be infected with coronavirus.

The 23-year-old hails from a district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and has been admitted in Lady Reading Hospital's isolation ward.

According to LRH’s spokesperson, the blood samples of the suspected coronavirus patient have been sent to the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, for testing.

Various suspected cases of coronavirus had emerged in Peshawar, however, none of them had tested positive.



Earlier on Thursday, The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) dispatched samples to NIH from three patients for testing who are suspected to have contracted coronavirus.

Pims’ spokesperson Dr Waseem Khawaja said that three people, including a Chinese national and two locals, had arrived at the hospital on Thursday with symptoms similar to those for the virus

They join the Chinese national who is already under treatment at the isolation ward set up in Pims.

Dr Khawaja added that lab reports for the admitted Chinese national had come back as negative.

Virus suspect at IIA

Meanwhile, a suspected coronavirus patient landed at the Islamabad International Airport on Thursday.

Identified as Sulaiman Khan, he arrived in the federal capital from Kunming in the Yunnan province of China.



During a screening, he was found to have a higher body temperature than normal. The staff of the health department immediately shifted him to the isolation ward.

After being provided with initial medical attention, he was shifted to the isolation ward in Pims.

The 2019-nCoV epidemic has claimed more than 900 lives and infected at least 40,000 others.