Parliamentary committee on COVID-19 meets for the first time

Nationwide tally of COVID-19 patients soared past 3,270 with 50 deaths

ISLAMABAD: The parliamentary committee on the novel coronavirus met at the Parliament House for the first time under the chairmanship of Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser on Monday.

During the meeting, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Zafar Mirza gave a detailed briefing about the precautionary measures taken to limit the spread of the deadly pathogen in the country.

National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Chairman Lieutenant General Muhammad Afza informed the meeting's participants about the testing, quarantining and other measures taken by the government to combat the spread of the virus.

Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, the prime minster's aide on finance, and Adviser Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood discussed the economic and business recovery plan devised in the wake of the current economic challenge.



The meeting was attended by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Federal Minister for Information Technology Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Federal Minister for Housing Tariq Bashir Cheema and Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed among others.

The nationwide tally of COVID-19 patients soared past 3,270, with 1,493 cases in Punjab, 881 in Sindh, 405 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 191 in Balochistan, 210 in Gilgit-Baltistan, 82 in Islamabad, and 15 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

The virus has claimed 50 lives so far, whereas 257 patients have reportedly recovered.

The number of cases has continued to soar despite the country being under a lockdown for the third consecutive week.