Poor sanitation and violation of standard operation procedures (SOPs) in the waste disposal arrangements at the quarantine housing hundreds of pilgrims here in Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Taftan have attracted vociferous criticism from doctors and the general public.
The Punjab government has established the quarantine at the agriculture campus of the Ghazi University. Labour Housing Scheme,Industrial Estate Multan. A local leader of the Dera Ghazi Khan Pakistan Medical Association has drawn the attention of the authorities towards the affairs through social media.
The quarantine established some 20 kilometres from the city housed 800 pilgrims who came here from Iran via Taftan border.Similarly, Hundreds of patients were kept in Recep Erdgon Hospital,Muzaffargarh
A video message by Dr Amir Abdul Rehman Qaisrani of the teaching hospital of the Ghazi Khan Medical College is doing the rounds online. He says the administration is playing with lives of people by not adopting SOPs meant for quarantine. He condemned poor disposal system and added lives of the lower staff were under severe threat as sweepers were being forced to work in the quarantine without Hazmat suits. He claimed sweepers went to their homes raising the level of risks of the virus spread.
He said there were no separate beds at quarantine as per SOPs. He said infected waste of quarantine was being brought out of the facility without adopting safety measures to the incinerator installed on the premises of Doctors Colony in Dera Ghazi Khan.
He made an appeal to authorities concerned to take notice of the dangerous prevailing situation at the quarantine. Dr Qaisrani maintained that nobody could call such a camp a quarantine.
Also, dwellers of Dera Ghazi Khan expressed their concern after the video showing the waste of quarantine being transported to the incinerator went viral online. The office bearers of of the Young Doctors Association demanded the waste be burnt outside the city.
Health CEO Dr Khalil Sikhani told Dawn the waste would be safely disposed of.
Hundreds of Pakistanis who returned home from a pilgrimage to Iran, were stuck in filthy coronavirus quarantine camps with limited medical care, and feared squalid conditions were helping spread the disease.
Speaking to AFP, former and current residents of Taftan camp on the border with Iran said the facility lacked running water or flushable toilets, with pilgrims only able to wash every few days.
On Wednesday, the Balochistan government sent 1,652 people, who had returned from Iran, to their respective provinces after their stay in quarantine for 14 days at Taftan. Of them, 1,230 belonged to Punjab, 232 to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 190 to Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
A day prior, around 700 pilgrims belonging to Sindh had returned home on 18 buses.
A media report published yesterday had revealed around 2,000 more pilgrims and traders remain in quarantine in Taftan and near Quetta, awaiting the end of their 14-day quarantine period before being allowed to continue their onward journey. Of these, 550 are being kept in Mian Ghundi, a picturesque village about 20 kilometres southwest of Quetta.
Government figures show that a bulk of the country's confirmed cases of novel coronavirus were detected in people who went on pilgrimages to Iran — one of the countries hardest-hit by the disease.
Pakistan shares a 960 kilometre border with Iran, with the main crossing point at Taftan in Balochistan province.
“I have been using the same mask for over seven days now,” one quarantined pilgrim at Taftan, who asked not to be named, had said in a phone interview on Tuesday.
“If I didn't have the virus when I first got here, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that I have it now.”
Iran has been scrambling to contain COVID-19 since authorities announced the first two deaths last month.
The Taftan border has been closed since March 16, but thousands of Pakistan pilgrims who were visiting religious sites in Iran have been allowed to return subject to two weeks' quarantine.
They are then also expected to undergo a further two weeks quarantine in their home towns.
Taftan was built years ago specifically as a resting station for returning pilgrims, but has been overwhelmed by the crush caused by the virus.
Videos circulating on social media showed people sleeping on floors and in corridors of permanent structures, and packed into tents erected in a dirty courtyard.
No attempt has been made to separate sick pilgrims from the healthy.
'Worse than animals'
Witnesses said people confined there staged protests this week to demand better conditions, while others just fled.
Security forces had to fire warning shots to bring things under control.
Ishtiaq Hussain, a university student from Tehran, was one of those who walked out of Taftan. He was never tested for coronavirus.
He said people were treated “worse than animals”, often being given “spoilt food” and left in “freezing camps with very few blankets”.
Taftan Assistant Commissioner Najeed Qambrani said the camp's remote location made it difficult to provide amenities.
“We are providing all the possible facilities,” he said.
But Naimat Ali Khaki, who had stayed at the quarantine, said conditions were unacceptable.
“There was no cleanliness and it was so overcrowded that we were literally walking over each other,” Khaki said.
He was still waiting for results of a coronavirus test.
On the other hand, Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal said officials were "catering, facilitating, helping, accommodating, medically assisting and securing" all the pilgrims at Taftan,
