Single Covid-19 patient infects 27 others in Gujrat.

LAHORE -- A man tested positive for the virus has reportedly infected 27 others in Gujrat district, in yet another incidence of mishandling of confirmed Covid-19 patients and of increasing local transmission in Punjab.

In a related development, panic-stricken doctors of the Shaikh Zayed Hospital Lahore's gynae ward withdrew their services after a pregnant woman who underwent C-Section at the facility on Thursday tested positive for the virus on Friday night.

The situation created further anxiety among the doctors and paramedics in the hospital when they came to know that the woman's husband who was accompanying her was also a patient of Covid-19 and that test reports of another suspected patient under treatment at the hospital for the last five days showed he was positive for the virus.

The infected woman and newborn have been isolated at the Services Hospital where the doctors also sent swabs of the one-day-old baby for diagnosis.

In Gujrat the tally of confirmed Covid-19 patients jumped to 51 after 27 new patients were reported on Saturday, an official told media.

Initially, he said, only four patients had tested positive for the virus in the district (in Sara-i-Alamgir, Dinga and Shadiwal) who all had foreign travel history.

The health authorities were alarmed to find that one of these four patients had contacted at least 40 people,the official said, adding the officials had sent their samples for tests and out of them 27 turned out to be Covid-19 patients. After the confirmation, they all were isolated either at their homes, or the nearby hospitals, he said.

Given the worrying situation, the government has launched a high-level probe into the spread of virus in Gujrat directing the deputy commissioner to supervise its process.

About Shaikh Zayed Hospital situation, head of the gynae unit, Prof Dr Mohammad Ikran said the pregnant woman first visited the hospital in the morning on Thursday last and met an associate professor who was attending her as a private patient.

He said the gyne unit doctors were alarmed when the woman told them that her husband had recently returned from Iran.

Though the on-duty doctors sent her back, the official said the woman revisited the gyne ward in the evening the same day with severe labour pains and...