Provinces told not to lower guard on Eid

The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Wednesday expressed its concern over the increasing number of Covid-19 cases in the country and directed the provinces to ensure strict implementation of the coronavirus Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on Eidul Azha.

The NCOC, which met with Planning Minister Asad Umar in the chair, expressed its concern as the national tally of active Covid cases surged past the 34,000 mark on the back of more than 1,500 new cases registered during the last 24 hours, the highest single-day tally Since June 20.

The NCOC had confirmed the presence of different variants of the coronavirus, including the delta (Indian), beta (South African) and alpha (UK) variants, in Pakistan and detection of their cases in May and June.

Also, Britain said on Wednesday it would provide genomic sequencing support to Pakistan, Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria to help identify, assess and track new variants of the novel coronavirus.

The novel coronavirus, which has killed 4 million people globally since it emerged in China in late 2019, mutates around once every few weeks, slower than influenza or HIV, but enough to require tweaks to vaccines.

Public Health England will extend support to Britain's partners through the New Variant Assessment Platform Programme which tracks changes in the virus.

About a third of all SARS-CoV-2 sequences submitted to the international GISAID database on influenza viruses have been from the United Kingdom.

"The UK is a science superpower and it is right we support the worldwide fight against Covid," Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.

"We are sharing the UK's genomics expertise with Pakistan, Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Singapore and the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, boosting disease surveillance and helping countries identify, track and respond to Covid variants, which are of concern globally."

The NCOC meeting discussed violations of the SOPs in different sectors. After a briefing about the situation, the minister instructed the provinces to ensure strict implementation of the SOPs. He also directed the provinces to ramp up their coronavirus vaccination drives.

The NCOC had already issued special instructions for Eidul Azha, which will be celebrated in the third week of this month. The meeting also took stock of other measures aimed at stemming the spread of the disease, including the closure of the country’s western border.

The NCOC, headed by Umar, serves as the unified national effort against the coronavirus pandemic. In its daily update of the disease, it said on Wednesday that the national tally of active cases rose to 34,013, as 1,517 more people tested positive for the virus while 877 people recovered from it.

The NCOC said that the national positivity ratio also surged to 3.27%. Among the active cases, it said, 2,187 patients were admitted to various Covid-dedicated healthcare facilities of the country, including 1,941 in critical condition. It added that 197 patients were on ventilators.

However, the single-day death toll came down further to 17, the lowest this month. The update said, 17 people, including 16 in hospitals, died during the past 24 hours, raising the nationwide death toll to 22,469. Most of the deaths it added occurred in Sindh, followed by Punjab.

The national caseload of the disease, since it first broke out in the country in February last year, rose to 966,007 among them, the update said, 909,525 people had fully cured the infectious disease, making it a significant recovery rate of more than 90%.

(With input from agencies)