Punjab to increase COVID-19 testing capacity to 5000 per day by this week: Yasmin Rashid

MULTAN: Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid on Tuesday vowed that COVID-19 testing capacity will be increased to 5000 in Punjab by the end of this week, ARY News reported.

Addressing to media in Multan, Yasmin Rashid said that he visited Multan to inspect the arrangements in the hospitals for COVID-19 patients after Shah Mehmood Qureshi expressed some reservations over lack of facilities in the hospitals.

“All facilities are available at Multan Nishtar and Recep Tayyip Erdogan Hospital for Covid-19 patients. There are currently 35 ventilators available in Tayyip Erdogan Hospital,” she added.

The health minister said that 34 doctors including paramedical staff have tested positive for the novel coronavirus at Multan’s Nishtar Hospital. She said the Multan hospital Covid-19 lab has conducted 3,608 coronavirus tests thus far.

“We cannot test everyone due to the lack of new coronavirus kits. Around 140 areas in Punjab have been sealed completely due to the rising number of coronavirus cases,” added Yasmin Rashid.

She further said that Punjab government will start conducting random coronavirus testing in the province in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.

“12000 random tests will be conducted in Lahore as the city has recorded the highest number of Covid-19 cases thus far,” she informed, adding that around 10 filed hospitals had been established across the province to deal with the situation arising out of coronavirus.

Yasmin Rashid said that govt was striving hard to increase the testing capacity of suspected cases of coronavirus to 20,000 per day from the end of April as currently 34 testing laboratories were fully functional in the country.