To help people who feel like they might have the symptoms, Dawn.com reached out to health officials to understand the process through which one can be tested for the virus for free.<\/p>\n
Here’s what you need to know:<\/p>\n
A patient suspecting they are manifesting symptoms of coronavirus should visit a government designated public or private hospital. According to National Institute of Health (NIH) official Dr Mumtaz Ali Khan, all district headquarter hospitals and tertiary care hospitals across the country are equipped to collect samples for coronavirus.<\/p>\n
At the hospital, a doctor will check the patient for symptoms to determine if he or she may have coronavirus, according to NIH Executive Director Maj Gen Aamir Ikram.<\/p>\n
The patient will be asked a set of questions regarding their travel history as well as of those they have been in close contact with.<\/p>\n
If the doctor rules out suspicion of coronavirus, the patient will be sent back.<\/p>\n
If the doctor comes to the conclusion that the patient is manifesting symptoms, a swab of their saliva is taken and sent to one of the designated facilities that have coronavirus testing equipment.<\/p>\n
This testing will be done free of cost, said Ikram.<\/p>\n
Facilities collecting coronavirus samples:
\nPlease note the facilities below are only sending samples for free testing to the main centres and will not conduct tests themselves on individual requests.<\/p>\n
However, some private labs are also independently testing individuals for the virus against a fee.<\/p>\n
Punjab
\nServices Hospital – Lahore
\nNishtar Hospital – Multan
\nBenazir Hospital – Rawalpindi
\nAJK
\nShaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan Hospital – Muzaffarabad
\nAbbas Institute of Medical Sciences – Muzaffarabad
\nShaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan Hospital – Rawalakot
\nDivisional Headquarters Hospital – Mirpur
\nDistrict Headquarters Hospital – Kotli
\nSindh
\nChandka Medical College Hospital – Larkana
\nGhulam Muhammad Mahar Medical College – Sukkur
\nPeoples Medical University Hospital – Nawabshah
\nCivil Hospital – Karachi
\nJinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre – Karachi
\nLyari General Hospital – Karachi
\nIndus Hospital – Karachi
\nAga Khan Hospital – Karachi
\nDow University of Health Sciences, Ojha – Karachi
\nGB
\nIn Gilgit-Baltistan, citizens can contact district health authorities who will come to their homes to collect samples
\nKP
\nIn Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Police Services Hospital has been made the main centre for dealing with coronavirus cases<\/p>\n
In addition to these facilities, citizens can visit their nearest public tertiary healthcare centre or district headquarter hospital for screening.<\/p>\n
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To help people who feel like they might have the symptoms, Dawn.com reached out to health officials to understand the process through which one can be tested for the virus for free. Here’s what you need to know: A patient suspecting they are manifesting symptoms of coronavirus should visit a government designated public or private […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2304,2297],"tags":[2458],"class_list":["post-13644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-latest-news","tag-corona-virus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13646,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13644\/revisions\/13646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspulse.com.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}