Thread by @jamewils

As coronavirus chaos has enveloped Pakistan, with hospitals overflowing, doctors dying and infections escalating at an unmanageable rate, a dangerous black market in blood plasma has emerged.

theguardian.com/world/2020/jun…

Doctors said that hospitals in Islamabad had also run out of vital drugs, such as dexamethasone which was recently proven to help in Covid-19 recovery, as well oxygen cylinders, because they had been stolen and were now being sold for 25 times the market price on the black market

Pakistan now has one of the fastest infection rates in the world, with 185,000 confirmed cases and upwards of 5,000 new infections a day. The planning minister, Asad Umar, has said cases could multiply eightfold by the end of July and hit 1.2 million.

Lockdown restrictions were lifted in Pakistan on 18 May by the supreme court when it said the virus was “not a pandemic in Pakistan” and questioned why the fight to contain it was “swallowing so much money”.

The situation in Pakistan got so bad that the World Health Organization took the unusual step of writing to the government, instructing it to reimpose lockdown as the country had met none of the conditions for safely lifting it.

The despair among doctors is palpable. A doctor at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), the largest government hospital in Islamabad, said not only had he not been paid for four months,

but rife misinformation meant doctors were being accused of being part of a conspiracy to allow patients to die, so more money would be given to the Pakistan government by international health organisations like the WHO. Many doctors had been physically assaulted as a result.

“We have run out of beds, resources, manpower, energy and above all our efficiency has been greatly marred by our disappointment in our system,” he said.

India should be very cautious, we are not far away from this. We can't blame Tablighis and find solace in stupid Baba's cures