Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has said that the novel coronavirus is a test from Allah and "we would have to respond to the pandemic with patience and wisdom".
"The ulema [religious scholars] should come forward to guide the people in this hour of trial and prepare them to live their lives in the light of Quran and Sunnah," he said after a telephonic briefing from AJK Director General Public Health Dr Sardar Aftab Khan.
According to an official statement issued on Monday, President Masood further reiterated that AJK is not that affected from the calamity so far, but the region would have to take all necessary measures to cope with any situation in coming days.
During the briefing, he was apprised that rapid response teams headed by district health officers (DHOs) are fully functional in all the 10 districts of the liberated territory.
These teams, comprising representatives of revenue department, NGOs and Expanding Immunisation Programme (EPI), are tracing people who have a travel history in order to get them tested and to shift suspects to respective quarantine centres.
The director general health told the AJK president that isolated wards have been established in 10 hospitals of Azad Kashmir while samples of 44 suspected coronavirus cases of the state were sent to the National Institute of Health.
Of them, test reports of 40 people have been received and only one of them has been tested positive who has been shifted to quarantine centre in Mirpur.
Informing President Masood about the virology lab at Abbas Institute of Medical Sciences Muzaffarabad – that has been strengthened on emergency basis – the health official said that "hopefully, the project will start functioning in a couple of days".
The rapid response teams (RRTs), he went on to say, have also been assigned the task to coordinate, take preventive measures and to monitor the situation round the clock.
In his statement, the AJK president said that emergency measures like screening of suspected people at the entry and exit points of the liberated territory, setting up of quarantine centres, ensuring presence and training of physicians and the concerned staff in hospitals as well as timely provision of medicines have already been taken.
“This is an ongoing process which will continue on daily basis,” he said while appreciating the armed forces for imparting training to the medical teams deputed for the treatment of potential corona cases.
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Lauding the National Disaster Management Authority, Azad Kashmir State Disaster Management Authority and other agencies concerned for taking emergency measures, President Masood said that it is a great challenge to mitigate the negative impacts of corona on the state economy particularly the vulnerable marginalised segments of the society.
“However, the volume and size of some economic package for the affected people can only be determined after the data is collected.”
Appealing to the people to strictly follow the guidelines being provided by the medical experts to save themselves and their families from the pandemic, the president while referring to the situation in Occupied Kashmir, lamented that now when the world has focused its attention on spread of coronavirus, New Delhi has started a new spate of repression in the disputed territory.
“The Indian troops have stepped up killing the Kashmiri people during so-called door-to-door searches in the length and cranny of Occupied Kashmir,”, he said, calling upon the international community to take notice of India's repressive actions and violations of human rights in the disputed valley.
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