Pakistan has officially surpassed 100,000 patients with the new coronavirus, authorities said on Monday (June 8th), a figure well below reality as hospitals in the country begin to be saturated.
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On Monday morning, the government reported 103,671 Covid-19 positive cases. He announced on Sunday that the pandemic had crossed the 2,000 dead mark in the country. However, the number of people infected is largely underestimated due to the lack of sufficient screening. In late May, the Minister of Health of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa had told AFP that the level of contamination was ten times higher than the official figures in this province of North West.
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At the beginning of June, a report by the authorities of the Punjab province (East) had leaked in the media, estimating that more than 670,000 sick people lived in Lahore, city of more than 11 million inhabitants. Officially, the number of positive cases was then only 72,000 people for the whole of Pakistan, which has more than 200 million inhabitants. The lethality of the disease, which is accelerating sharply, remains low in this country with poor health facilities. But while there are now nearly 1,400 patients in critical condition, many hospitals are reaching saturation.
Hospitals refuse patients
“Hospitals are short of beds. There are not enough artificial respirators ” , worried Khizer Hayat, the president of the Association of the young doctors of Punjab, questioned by AFP. "As the cases increase, an increasing number of health workers are also victims of the virus," deplored Dr. Farooq Sahil, hospital doctor in Lahore.
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In Karachi (South), hospitals have started to refuse patients. In front of the Indus hospital, a banner expressed "the regrets" of the management of the establishment because the center dedicated to Covid-19 is "completely saturated". "The crisis is developing now that we have stopped observing the isolation measures , " Sikander Ali Memon, in charge of the fight against the new coronavirus for the province of Sindh, in which Karachi is the chief, told AFP. capital city.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has since the beginning of the pandemic opposed a confinement of cities which, according to him, makes it possible “to save people from the coronavirus, but makes them die of hunger” . In early June, he announced the complete lifting of the containment started in late March in Pakistan.
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