The 1,200-bed field isolation centre at the Karachi Expo Centre, on April 6, will open its doors for new COVID-19 infected patients of Karachi and other parts of Sindh who will be referred to it by designated tertiary care hospitals, as the diseases infected another 51 people in six districts of Sindh on April 5.

A source in the provincial health department informed PNFS that authorities have decided not to overburden the designated tertiary care health facilities in terms of corona cases further.

The hospitals have now been asked to admit only new severely ill COVID-19 patients or those seeking intensive cares, while the rest will present at the newly established Expo Centre isolation facility, where the Sindh health department has deployed its doctors, paramedics and other human resources, the source added.

Through a letter of the health department, all the district health officers of Karachi division have been asked to refer the asymptomatic or mild symptomatic COVID-19 positive cases to Field Isolation Centre at the Karachi Expo Centre, from April 6 after due processing.

However, medical superintendents of the hospitals of Karachi have been asked to ensure that the positive cases having moderate or severe symptoms of COVID-19 were kept in isolation ward of their respective hospitals, according to the letter.

The source said that the field isolation centre has been established by the Pakistan Army with the technical support of a private university hospital, while Sindh government is supposed to meet out the human resources component including the physicians.

If needed, the COVID-19 patients from hospitals in the interior of Sindh may also be shifted to the Karachi field hospital in question, the source added, clarifying that none of the coronavirus patients already admitted in about six designated hospitals in Karachi will be transferred to the Expo Centre, which was inaugurated in the presence of the Sindh Governor Imran Ismail and Sindh Health minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho on April 2.