Skip to main content

Sindh establishes first coronavirus drive-through testing facility in Karachi

A drive-through coronavirus testing centre was on Tuesday inaugurated in Karachi — the first such centre reported to be established in Pakistan.

Visiting the newly established centre, inaugurated jointly by the Sindh local government and health departments, Sindh Information Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah said that it was part of the provincial government's war against the coronavirus. He said that currently the largest demand was for testing for Covid-19.

The drive-through testing facility has been established in Jahangir Kothari Parade area of Clifton, according to a press release issued by Shah's director for media management and public relations.

The doctors, paramedical staff, and other personnel deployed at the new testing facility in Karachi have been provided with all the necessary safety, protective equipment and gear to safeguard the virus, the press release added.

The media coordinator to the Sindh health minister Meeran Yousuf told Dawn.com that mobile vans belonging to the Indus Hospital are being used for the drive-through testing. She said that the vans will be going around Karachi's District South, adding that they are currently working on a proper schedule for the testing.

Citizens can call to book appointments between 9am and 5pm and the facility will collect the samples from 12pm to 3pm, said Yousuf.

According to Shah, people who visit the drive-through testing station will be registered and given a number, but for the test to be conducted, they should possess a travel history or certain symptoms of the virus.

He explained that instead of these individuals going to hospitals for testing or availing the facilities to be tested at home, they will be able to use the drive-through testing facility.

In a tweet, Shah's office explained the process for qualifying for testing at the drive-through centre:

  • In order to be tested, citizens should call the office for District Commissioner South at 02199203012 between 9am and 5pm.
  • The helpline will provide a time and code for the test.
  • There are three stages of the drive-through test.

Explaining the process, Shah said that individuals who have obtained the code for testing will also be asked questions regarding their travel history and why they want to be tested for the virus.

Shah said prior to the test being conducted, there is a filter, a new technique using an X-ray, which will help clarify if the individuals require a test or if they should be given other suggestions.

The minister said that this is the first drive-through facility in the province, adding that such centres will also be introduced in other areas across Sindh.

In a tweet, announcing the inauguration of the centre, Shah added that he had also been tested and his results were negative.

So far 676 cases have been confirmed in Sindh and a total of 1,943 cases have been confirmed across Pakistan.

Drive-through testing facilities have been set up in various countries including Germany, Lisbon and the United Arab Emirates.

In the small German town of Gross-Gerau, the drive-through testing facility has been designed to minimise exposure to medical staff and patients. The drive-in at the local hospital is one of several unexpected ways healthcare providers are tackling a fast-spreading outbreak.



from The Dawn News - Home https://ift.tt/2UwRGLx
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trump says he urged team to ‘slow’ COVID-19 testing

US President Donald Trump said Saturday he was encouraging health officials in his administration to slow down coronavirus testing, arguing that increased tests lead to more cases being discovered. The president has claimed falsely on several occasions that surges of COVID-19 in several states can be explained by greater numbers of diagnostic tests. At his first rally since the outbreak forced nationwide shutdowns in March, Trump told the crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma that testing was a “double-edged sword.” The United States — which has more deaths and cases than any other country — has carried out more than 25 million coronavirus tests, placing it outside the top 20 countries in the world, per capita. “Here is the bad part: When you do testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you will find more cases,” Trump argued. “So I said to my people ‘slow the testing down.’ They test and they test.” It was not clear from Trump’s tone if he was playing to the crowd, who ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sir Anwer Pervez, richest Pakistani British businessman, loses £432m in pandemic

Sir Anwar Pervez OBE, the founder and chairman of Bestway Cash & Carry has lost £432 million during the coronavirus pandemic to bring him down to No 50 on the richest British people list. The list has 1,000 people and is published by the Sunday Times newspaper . Pervez was at No 42 previously.  The 2020 list of the UK’s richest shows its first fall in wealth in a decade as Britain’s wealthiest people lost tens of billions of pounds in the coronavirus pandemic, the Sunday Times reported in its Rich List 2020. The newspaper, which has produced the respected annual ranking of the country’s 1,000 wealthiest people since 1989, found the past two months had resulted in the super-rich losing £54 billion ($65 billion). More than half of the billionaires in Britain had seen drops in their worth by as much as £6b, a decrease in their collective wealth unprecedented since 2009 and the financial crisis. The Hinduja brothers, who topped last year’s list with a £22b fortune, saw among ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Despite reservations about jury, Pakistan to implement FATF reforms: envoy

WASHINGTON: Despite its reservations about the fairness of the jury which is to determine Pakistan’s performance against terror financing, the government is committed to implementing its action plan for dealing with this issue, says Islamabad’s Washington envoy Asad Majeed Khan. In a conversation with a prominent US scholar George Perkovich, recorded at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington on Monday afternoon, Ambassador Khan said the actions that Pakistan had taken so far to eliminate terror financing were “reflective of the political will”. “We feel that we have done a lot. We are also clear and determined to do more,” said the envoy while responding to a question about a meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) held in Orlando last week, which asked Pakistan to implement its own action plan for eliminating terror financing by October. Failing to do so could put Pakistan on a blacklist of violators and bring strict economic sanctions too. “But we w...
Post a Comment
Read more