Government vows to ensure availability of PPE across country

The Special Advisor to Prime Minister (SPAM) on National Health and Regulations, Dr Zafar Mirza, on Monday said that the government would provide all personal protection equipment (PPE) to the health professionals dealing with the coronavirus patients across the country.
Addressing a press conference here, he said that the federal government on Wednesday April 8 would introduce a programme in that regard, adding that so far the federal government had supplied 500,000 N-95 facemasks to the provinces.
Mirza maintained that those masks were only designed for health professionals directly dealing with coronavirus patients.
He said that so far over 70,000 people worldwide had died of coronavirus and more than 265,000 had recovered.
Mirza said that total deaths in Pakistan reached 50 and total infected people presently in Pakistan stood at 3,277.
He said that during past 24 hours more than 397 people were reported corona positive of which 303 in Punjab, 33 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 17 in Sindh, four in Islamabad, four in Gilgit-Baltistan, and three in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Mirza said that the federal government would provide additional N-95 masks to the health professionals, 5,600 corona testing kits had been supplied to the Balochistan government and the PPEs required in Balochistan were estimated at 1,162 of which over 600 were provided by the federal government.
On the occasion, the special assistant said that young doctors should not adopt the way of protest when the entire nation was struggling to cope with the coronavirus pandemic.
He said coronavirus detection test at the government level was being done free of cost.
Mirza said currently Pakistan had capacity of 6,584 tests.
"The government is trying to expand the capacity by up to 2,000 tests per day," he continued.
Mirza said that to address the shortage of ventilators a special committee had been constituted and another committee regarding diagnostic tests.
He said a 10-member committee of pathologists had been formed, which would forward their recommendations about coronavirus tests in the country.
The committee will review the new ways of coronavirus tests as currently tests are being conducted via PCR machines.
Mirza said social distancing was the only way to control the outbreak of the virus in the country, adding that visitors must avoid visiting the hospitals were coronavirus patients were being treated.
Moreover, Chairman National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Lieutenant General Muhammad Afzal said over 3,800 ventilators were available in the country, while 2,000 more would be imported from China.
He said 500 ventilators would reach Pakistan on Thursday, while 29,000 protective kits for doctors and paramedics were provided to the provinces.
The chairman NDMA said 137 hospitals, had exclusively been dedicated for the patients of coronavirus. He said 22 laboratories were working across the country.