Coronavirus deaths underreported in Balochistan, says Liaquat Shahwani   

QUETTA: Spokesman for the Balochistan government Liaquat Shahwani on Thursday said that deaths from coronavirus are underreported in the province as most deaths in far flung areas were not reported to the authorities, ARY NEWS reported.

He said that people in those areas consider these sudden deaths as natural, however, the chief minister has directed them to report all such deaths to ascertain their causes.

While supporting the provincial decision to extend lockdown in the province, he said that as  soon as they eased lockdown in the province, a surge in local transmission of cases was reported.

The spokesman further assured that the government was paying heed to the suggestions from the doctors on tackling coronavirus pandemic in the province.

After increasing our testing capacity, we have witnessed reporting more coronavirus cases, he said while indicating towards an alarming trend of 20 percent people testing positive for the virus out of 800 tests conducted recently.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Balochistan government’s spokesperson Liaquat Shahwani on Tuesday announced that provincial govt has decided to extend lockdown for 15 more days.

“Following the increase in coronavirus cases, Balochistan has extended its lockdown until May 19 in order to control the spread of coronavirus,” he said while addressing a press conference.

Liaquat Shahwani has said that the coronavirus is spreading at an alarming rate in the province and the death rate has also increased.

“In order to control the coronavirus, effective measures such as social distancing and isolation should be practiced,” he said and added the number of locally-transmitted cases in the province was increasing.

“The local transmission rate in the province is 88pc,” added Shahwani.