ISLAMABAD: A house jobber at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) has been shifted to an isolation ward ofthe hospitalafterlaboratory reports confirmed that he has contracted a dangerous type of malaria.

Earlier, rumours were rife in the hospital that the doctor was suffering from some serious disease but most of the tests such as dengue, hepatitis, typhoid and congo were found negative.

Further tests confirmed that he had contracted vivax malaria, which reduces immunity to a dangerous level, making a patient vulnerable to all kinds ofdiseases andinfections that was why he had been kept in isolation ward.

Administrator of Pims, Dr Altaf Hussain while talking to Dawn confirmed that doctor Naseem Abbas, who is doing house job, was suffering from vivax malaria.

He said the vivax was a type of malaria in which red blood cells reduced and a patient could easily catch even a minor disease or infection.

`Dr Abbas has been kept in an isolation ward so that he should not expose to infections or any other disease,` Dr Altaf said.

He said that further tests were under way and staff should not panic as the patient was suffering from vivax malaria.