No coronavirus tests at KMU lab after 15th.

Byline: Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR -- The Public Health Reference Laboratory at the Khyber Medical University, Peshawar, is going to halt testing for novel coronavirus (Covid-19) from May 15 over a lack of trained staff.

The development comes as the virus infects five KMU lab employees on Friday.

'We will discontinue working after May 15. Five staffers have tested positive for Covid-19 suggesting enhanced risk to rest of the staff. It warrants recruitment of dedicated and trained staff at the PHRL,' faculty members of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, one of the KMU's institutes, told the vice-chancellor in a letter on Saturday.

Provincial Doctors' Association chairman Dr Zubair Zahir, who provided a copy of the letter to Dawn, said chief secretary Dr Kazim Niaz had sanctioned Rs10 million in March for the start of Covid-19 tests by hiring staff from the market.

He, however, said the KMU's administration posted the IBMS faculty members without lab experience there and thus, causing the spread of the virus.

PDA chief says IBMS faculty members sans lab experience posted to PHRL

He said an associate professor of physiology, Dr Inayat Khan, contracted the infection on Friday, while his father and mother tested positive for the virus afterward.

'We demand the hiring of dedicated staff for Covid-19 testing so that faculty members do research in their respective areas,' he said.

Dr Zubair wondered how the KMU could run a high-tech lab with the people, who were primarily required to teach anatomy, pharmacology and physiology.

'We're scared of working in the PHRB but will stay put until May 15 in the best interest of the province. We won't carry out tests thereafter,' he said.

In the letter titled 'Hiring of dedicated and trained staff for PHRL operations', the IBMS faculty members said they were asked by the VC in March to join the lab emergency duty and they all complied with the orders despite a lack of pandemic experience.

'We acknowledge the KMU commitment to the government and to the people during the pandemic, but hiring or arranging skilled personnel for PHRL to serve the purpose effectively and relive the IBMS faculty from irrelevant work enabling them to concentrate on teaching and research.

'The PHRL is an independent laboratory of the KP government and after its establishment at KMU, dedicated staff should have been hired since its creation in 2017,'...

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