Dr. Muhammad Idrees Marwat
“There is no disease that Allah has created, except that He also has created its treatment.” (Sahih al-Bukhari Shareef).
By the grace of Almighty Allah (swt), the expression of Covid-19 has been extremely benign in the 3 major tertiary care hospitals of KPK. Only one patient has been put on a mechanical support in LRH and he is responding well. No admission of Covid-19 to ICU of KTH in concordance with the similar stats coming from HMC. I wonder if that’s a coincidence.
I have been in continual correspondence with many lead physicians and pulmonologists currently serving in the 3 major tertiary care hospitals of Peshawar, KPK i.e. (Khyber Teaching Hospital, Hayatabad Medical Complex & Lady Reading Hospital).
Their standpoint being that, it is since the beginning of winter 2019 that they have been admitting severely ill patients in some numbers with fever, cough, atypical respiratory symptoms and viral pneumonia with CXR and CT mostly revealing bilateral peripheral consolidation and opacities especially sub pleural. They have been treating them accordingly and a very small percentage of particularly those with underlying comorbidities and/or old age would unfortunately not make it.
First person to have contracted Covid-19 can be tracked back to 17 Nov, 2019 from Wuhan– Couple of weeks before Chinese authorities could disclose the new virus. Up till end of Feb, 2020 there was no travel ban, no screening protocols, no nothing in Pakistan in the context of Covid-19.
There are tens of thousands of Pakistanis working and studying in China who would travel frequently. Hundreds of businessmen come n go to China every day. Moreover, thousands would travel to Pakistan from all over the world.
We can’t ignore the fact that we did import Covid-19 before it could be officially labeled as Covid-19 by the WHO on 11 Feb, 2020.
Since, Covid-19 wasn’t registered as an epidemic in Pakistan up-till late Feb, 2020, therefore, it is officially presumed that we are still going through incubation period and are yet to enter the stage 3 of the disease spread.
In my humble opinion, our exposure to Cov 2 is not recent. We are already past the stage of community spread and I’m a strong believer that infact our population is Alhamdullillah immune to it (herd immunity) and we need not be all that distraught about it.
Comprehensive BCG vaccinations and resistance to malaria may well be positive contributors to our resilient immune systems. Several climacteric studies deliberated to validate these postulations are verily in citation. I quote my father, an oral & Maxillofacial surgeon once updating me on the remarkable response of non healing aphthous ulcers to BCG vaccine. BCG has been extrapolated as an enhancer of unspecified passive immunity for many years. Moreover, the role of hydroxychloroquine in prophylaxis and treatment of Covid-19 is also getting approval from many medical counsels around the world.
We can even research on the changing behavioral patterns of Cov 2. My observation being that our environment is disproportionate with Cov 2. In other words, Covid-19 is not the disease of Sub-Continent.
My personal assessment being, that no new cases will be reported from mid April onwards in the Subcontinent inshaAllah except for the one’s coming from abroad and the European continent and America unfortunately will have to put up with it till early May. Reasons being environmental and geographical distribution patterns of mostly affected areas.
Yes, we should stricktly observe all the possible precautionary measures but this environment of uncertainty, fear and depression must be discouraged slowly and gradually by bringing life back to routine.
“Blood from Covid-19 survivors may point the way to a cure. A particular kind of “serological assay” might lead to the first real treatment for the disease. The idea is called “convalescent serum” or “convalescent plasma,” a century-old idea that uses the blood of people who’ve recovered from a disease to treat people who still have it. Survivors of a disease keep antibodies to that pathogen in their blood; they’ve “seroconverted,” which is to say their blood and immune system have changed. There are several initiatives right now to find people who seroconverted and use their serum, their plasma, to treat severe cases. That has been done in China, and China also sent serum to Italy” ( Blood From Covid-19 Survivors May Point the Way to a Cure, www.wired.com).
I sense a window of opportunity amidst this qualm. We, as Pakistan can propagate the moderate, tolerant and a more responsible image of Pakistan on a global forum by offering an unconditional support to the imperil world in terms of gigantic supply of seroconverted products.
The global community and WHO can send in their teams to Pakistan with requisite equipments and kits for Covid-19 diagnostic testing and antibody detection along with hi tech centrifuges, plasma bags and all the necessary particulars.
We have a mammoth batch of health care workers who can conduct colossal random diagnostic testing/antibody detection tests and find out actively infected and immune population. We can strategically isolate the affected ones and utilize the immune group to deal with Covid-19 patients. FDA has already approved trial based treatment of Covid-19 patients with a century-old practice of antibody rich plasma administration in novel viral infections.
By doing this, we can hurl the world a big hoy by dispensing our antibody rich plasma in return for nothing but an acknowledgement of our real soft image. This massive screening of the population will identify who is immune so they can go back to work safely.
I hope my perusal is discerned on a positive note and I would request all the lead Medical and Allied fraternity of the country to kindly convene online national seminars on this core issue and share their valuable assessments in concordance with the prevailing circumstances.
I’m positive, I’m confident and concurrently of the firm belief that our decorated Medical & Allied fellowship will definitely come up with the workable answers to this Mayhem and help release the prevailing tensions because The Biggest Virus is not Corona but Fear!
