Pakistan has suspended six civil servants after they posed for a selfie with a coronavirus patient in a quarantine centre, an official said Tuesday.
In a time when the whole country is struggling to halt the spread of deadly virus, the selfie has shown an immature attitude of the public.
Six civil servants are suspended after posing for a selfie with a coronavirus patient in quarantine in Pakistan https://t.co/eeUOFkHBE0
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) March 24, 2020
The infected person was seen smiling with his mask not covering his mouth and nose. The potential transfer of coronavirus was very high among the people who were taking the picture.
In this account, the Quarantine management was equally culprit in this act.
The selfie — widely shared on social media — pictured a group of men around the apparent patient, several of them smiling broadly and none wearing face masks.
The picture was taken at a quarantine facility near Sukkur in virus-hit Sindh province, where 399 of the country’s 892 COVID-19 cases have been recorded so far.
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“Six of the government employees have been suspended and put into quarantine,” Rana Adeel, deputy commissioner in Sukkur, told AFP.
The commissioner added the six — employees of the provincial land department — were visiting a local politician who was in quarantine after contracting the novel coronavirus during a visit to Iran.
The suspension comes as Pakistan continued locking down large swathes of the country to battle the contagion.
Sindh police reported more than 700 people had been arrested in the bustling Karachi since Monday when the province announced its lockdown.
The spread of coronavirus in Sindh province has been the most exponential among other provvinces. The Sindh Chief Minister, Murad Ali shah has been widely praised for his unflinching efforts to curb the spread of corona virus. Other provinces need to emulate these developments.
Pakistan has a history of failing to contain infectious diseases such as polio, tuberculosis and hepatitis. So far, authorities have confirmed six deaths from coronavirus.
AFP with additional input from GVS News Desk.