Summary Laboratory of hospital does not have equipment to carry out blood test for the fatal disease
QUETTA (Dunya News) – Fatima Jinnah General and Chest Hospital Quetta does not have the facility for diagnoses of Congo virus that has killed 20 people so far. The laboratory of the hospital does not have required equipment to carry out the blood test for the fatal disease, reported Dunya News.
There is only one isolation ward in the hospital with the facility of just ten beds and even in that ward there are no separate cabins for the patients. The so called isolation ward is in middle of the hospital building instead of being at some far away corner. The location of the ward makes the atmosphere quite vulnerable for the virus to spread.
The blood samples are sent to Islamabad for the diagnoses or the patients send the samples to Karachi to the private laboratories. In both cases it takes at least 2 days for the samples to get the diagnosis while the virus is very dangerous and in most of the cases the patient dies before the result of the blood samples arrives back at the hospital.
It is also worth mentioning that the small ward of the hospital is not only catering the patients from inside the country but also from Afghanistan. While the hospital lacks basic needs of the doctors treating the Congo patients. The hospital does not have any special protected dress for doctors, PCR machine, ventilators or blood bank.
A total of 100 Congo cases were registered this year while 20 of which died during the treatment.
