PESHAWAR: The first coronavirus patient has been reported in Chitral.
A 48-year-old man identified as Shahabuddin, a domicile holder of Upper Dir, has tested positive for COVID-19.
His samples were sent from District Headquarters Hospital Chitral to the Public Health Reference Lab Peshawar which announced the result today.
A spokesman for the DC Lower Chitral also confirmed to ChitralToday the first positive case of coronavirus in the district.
Sources told ChitralToday that Shahabuddin, a Pashtoon fruit seller living in Chew Dok, had gone on Tableegh and returned to his home in Chitral on a truck avoiding being checked and quarantined.
When someone complained about him to the district administration, he was quarantined as per the government advisory on the disease during which he developed symptoms of the virus.
The patient was referred to the District Headquarters Hospital Chitral from where his samples were sent to Peshawar.
So far, Chitral was free of the virus and this is the first confirmed COVID-19 case.
Earlier, scores of patients had tested negative for the virus in both the districts of Chitral.
It is very disturbing that there is not even a single testing centre in both Lower and Upper Chitral without which a true picture of the situation cannot be determined.
Thousands of people have returned to their home villages in Chitral from different parts of the country but in case of an outbreak the local hospitals are very poorly equipped to cope with the issue.