853 pilgrims belong to Sindh in quarantine at Taftan: CM Sindh

KARACHI, Mar 12 (APP):Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah Thursday said that 2683 pilgrims from Pakistan were in quarantine at Taftan, Balochistan border, of them 853 belonged to Sindh and they would start arriving in the province from Friday evening.
This, he said, while participating in the meeting of Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Health Dr Zafar Miraza through video link from CM House, said a press release issued by the Sindh CM’s House.
The Sindh chief minister was assisted by Provincial Minister Health Dr Azra Pechuho, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, Advisor Law Murtaza Wahab, PSCM Sajid Jamal Abro, Secretary Health Dr Zahid Abbasi, Prof. Dr Faisal of Aga Khan hospital.
The chief minister said that 932 pilgrims of Sindh had been identified and they all were in Iran. He added that out of 2683 pilgrims at Taftan, 853 belonged to Sindh and their first batch would start pouring from tomorrow evening for which necessary arrangements have been made at Sukkur.
The meeting was told that so far Sindh government has conducted 198 tests of the suspects, of them 184 were declared as negative and 14 as positive.
The chief minister said that all the 14 cases were imported and there was no local transmission. He added out of 14 cases, eight have the travel history of Syria, three have of Dubai-UK and three have of Iran but hown many passengers have been checked from the countries, other than Iran, he questioned.
The PM’s Health special assistant said that another meeting would be held on Friday (tomorrow) in which important decisions would be taken.
Meanwhile, the participants of 15th meeting of Taskforce on Corona Virus chaired by Sindh chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah was told that Sindh government team with the support of airport authorities checked 3063 passangers on Wednesday, of them one was found suspect. The suspect has been shifted to hospital. The passanger had returned from Iraq.
The chief minister directed health department to maitian a register of the passangers and collect health cards/travel card from the passngers and feed them in the data base.
He directed chief secretary to depute at least eight data entry operators at the airport.
The chief minister was told that so far the public hospitals working all over Sindh have shared the data of 1874 patients of Pneumonia and fever while the private hospitals have given a list of 702 patients.
The health department on Thursday conducted 33 tests and all of the tests proved to be negative.
Commissioner Sukkur told the chief minister that they have two suspects and their necessary medical investigation was taking place.
The chief minister directed commissioner Karachi to test all the pilgrims coming from Taftan, Balochistan. He directed health department to arrnge the testing kits fot the purpose.