MARDAN: At least 14,000 people in Pakistan have contracted the coronavirus, the head of Pakistan’s biggest charity said on Monday, contradicting official government figures which put the current tally of cases at 1,690 with 21 fatalities.
According to the National Institute of Health, Pakistan had carried out a total of 6,449 tests as of March 26 — which has made it difficult to estimate the true scale of the outbreak in the country of 210 million.
“According to our estimates, some 14,000 people may have contracted coronavirus in Pakistan and we should prepare for the deaths of hundreds due to lack of testing and treatment,” Faisal Edhi of the Edhi Foundation told Arab News, a day after his charity closed down most of its mortuaries to protect their workers from becoming infected.
“We have witnessed a surge in suspected cases and been burying six to seven of them in Punjab alone on a daily basis,” Edhi said in a video widely shared on social media.
More than one-third of cases reported by the government have been recorded in Punjab, the country’s most populous province.
“This surge shows that people are dying of the virus without being declared COVID-19 positive,” Edhi told Arab News, adding that the charity was attributing the recent increase in deaths from respiratory failure to COVID-19.
Edhi Foundation had shut down its mortuaries, he said, because families of the deceased were hiding the true cause of death for fear the staff would refuse to bathe the bodies before burial. This was putting the charity’s staff at risk for infection.
“We were compelled to close down our mortuaries, because bathing the body of a coronavirus positive person would infect our workers,” Edhi said. He added that the charity workers would be back to work once they underwent proper training regarding the handling of COVID-19 positive patients.
“We have discussed it with doctors at a civil hospital, they will train our staff about how to bathe coronavirus positive deceased while protecting themselves and disinfecting the mortuaries.”
