F.P. Report
ISLAMABAD: The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has continued its national awareness campaign to educate citizens on adopting precautionary measures and for proper implementation of COVID-19 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to curb the disease in the country.
According to an NCOC official, the massive awareness drive was a need of the time as the virus was spreading fast in the country and the only way to control it was to strict follow the SOPs.
The official said the government would continue to take additional precautions of limiting public space and enforcing the SOPs to slow down the spread of disease. Through various means, he added, the NCOC continued its move to educate people across the country, including sharing of public services messages and dissemination of all the SOPs on electronic, print, and social media.
He said the citizens had been appealed to follow the SOPs, wear masks, maintain six feet distance, don’t leave the house unnecessarily, and don’t go into crowds at all. He said due to the corona situation, Ramazan and Eidul Fitr would be celebrated with simplicity this time. He urged the citizens to strictly follow the COVID-19 SOPs to prevent the disease in the wake of a sudden increase in the number of infections in the country.
He said the disease expansion had caused a burden on the country’s health system as the COVID cases were jumping up for the past few weeks. He said Prime Minister Imran Khan had also engaged the armed forces to ensure following of the SOPs while lockdowns were being imposed in areas with a very high positivity ratio. He said the government would ensure the proper implementation of COVID-19 SOPs during the Eid holidays. In that regard, the NCOC had decided to formulate monitoring teams at the federal, provincial, and district levels to ensure implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) SOPs from May 8-16, he added.
He said the NCOC decided that during the period all business and shops would remain closed with few exceptions like food outlets, grocery stores, paramedics, petrol pumps and bakeries, etc.
He said there would be a complete ban on tourism for both locals and outsiders. All tourist resorts, formal and informal picnic spots, public parks, shopping malls, all hotels and restaurants in or around tourist or picnic spots would remain closed while travel nodes leading to tourist or picnic spots both in northern and other hilly areas would also be shut down. However, locals especially the people of Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir would be allowed to travel back home.
An official of the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination said Pakistan would become largely self-sufficient in meeting its COVID-19 vaccine needs as it would begin producing the single-dose CanSino Bio vaccine locally.
He said due to the agreement on technology transfer, the National Institute of Health (NIH) would be able to produce three million doses per month which would significantly reduce the country’s dependence on other countries.
He said China was a strong partner and has gone out of its way in keeping up a supply chain and transferring technology to Pakistan. He said the government had planned to vaccinate 70 million population by the end of the year 2021.
He said the population of Pakistan, which was currently eligible for vaccination, was 100 million out of 220 million as the vaccines had only been approved for those above 18. The government had started vaccination for 40 years and above and in that regard, the registration was opened last week.
He said the Economic Coordination Committee approved $150 million dollars for vaccine procurement on November 20, 2020, while the Cabinet confirmed it on December 1st, 2020. It was important to note that vaccines did not get approved for use until mid or late December as Pfizer approved on December 11, 2020, AstraZeneca approved on December 30, 2020, while Sinopharm was also in late-stage Phase III trials in December, he added. He said the government was proud of its accomplishments especially considering the serious global supply issue when some of the richest countries like Australia and Canada had to slow down or halt their vaccine roll-out.
