Amid rising cases, Karachi Administrator Murtaza Wahab urges people to follow SOPs

Karachi Administrator Murtaza Wahab on Monday urged the Karachittes to follow the coronavirus standard operating procedures (SOPs) as the government does not want to be strict due to rapidly rising Covid-19 cases.

He was addressing the media in Karachi on Monday after attending the meeting of the coronavirus task force chaired by Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah.

Murtaza Wahab said that the positivity ratio rose by six per cent during the past 24 hours. This number was less than one per cent a month earlier, he added.

Read more: Karachi’s positivity rate rises to 6%

The Karachi administrator urged the masses to take precautionary measures as the government does not want to be strict. He said the best way of prevention from the Covid-19 Omicron variant is the face mask.

Murtaza Wahab said around 29million people have been partially or fully vaccinated in Sindh so far.

Taking a jibe at the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, Wahab said that the incumbent government would not have needed to divert people to private hospitals under Sehat Insaf Card had it been properly running the public healthcare facilities.

He said that the prices of medicines rose by 80 per cent in the last five years, adding that it has become difficult for the middle-income group to bear the medicine expenses.

He said that people from all over the country come to Sindh for free treatment.

He said that nearly 550 free liver transplants have been conducted in Sindh in 2021, adding that 52 per cent of patients hailed from Sindh while 48 per cent from other parts of the country.

Wahab said that earlier, people had to go to India for a liver transplant.

“The Sindh government proudly says that the kidney and liver transplants are carried out for free here,” the administrator said.

Read more: Pakistan reports over 700 Covid-19 cases amid Omicron threat

Wahab shared that more than 5,000 patients from Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) received free treatment at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) in 2021.

He said more than 0.15 million patients from Balochistan, more than 8,000 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and over 51,000 from Punjab received free treatment in hospitals of Sindh last year.

“We are not in the federal government but still serving the entire nation,” said Wahab.