NDMA chief claims meeting all requirements of PPEs except N-95 masks

[caption id="attachment_579733" align="alignnone" width="2560"] Japanese tourists wear face protection masks in the metro in Paris as the country is hit by an outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), France, March 11, 2020. REUTERS/Johanna Geron[/caption]

Chairman National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Lt Gen Muhammad Afzal on Monday, while denying any shortage of personal protection equipments (PPEs) for health professionals in Pakistan, has claimed that the country can meet all the requirements of the PPEs excluding N-95 masks locally.

Talking to media persons here after a ceremony in Islamabad during which he received 15 testing machines and 15,000 testing kits for the COVID-19 from the World Health Organisation (WHO) Representative Dr Palitha Gunarathna Mahipala, the NDMA chief said Pakistan was presently only importing N-95 masks, and was sourcing all remaining PPE requirements locally.

Afzal said Pakistan was not importing any item except N-95 face masks as most of the required PPE was locally produced.

He said there was no dearth of any PPEs whereas the locally produced equipment was made of clothing matching international standard.

Afzal said Pakistan had attained the capacity to conduct 50,000 coronavirus tests on a daily basis.

He was flanked by Country Representative WHO Dr Mahapala and NIH Executive Director Major Gen Aamer Ikram.

Afzal said that in order to control inflow and outflow of traffic, effective measures were made at the borders and airports to control coronavirus transmission within and outside the country.

Recently, he said NDMA had already provided 3,900 pieces of the PPEs to all frontline doctors fighting the pandemic in hospitals of the country. "Yesterday, we completed second round of our supplies and provided PPEs to 502 hospitals' doctors across the country."

Afzal said NDMA was in the position to provide over 100,000 PPEs and all other required equipment every week to the doctors across the country.

On March 14, there were 14 laboratories working, and around 800 tests per day were carried out.

"We have 39 functional labs and are also trying to activate 27 more within a week's time," said the NDMA chairman.

Out of these, 11 were of the military, and today in NDMA's warehouse around 600,000 samples of testing kits were present and along with these machines, it had 14 extra testing machines, which would be distributed among the 27 newly-established labs, he added.

"We are harnessing our capabilities across the country. A major breakthrough is of 100 mobile testing labs that are fully equipped and can be placed near the localities fearing outbreak of coronavirus patients. It can also help in shifting affected patients to quarantine [centers]," Afzal said.

He also mentioned that he would raise the matter of testing strategy in today's National Command and Operation Centre conference. "I will suggest that in case of testing symptomatic people alone rather those localities to be focused that are going to be put under lockdown. It is also being considered to recommend provincial governments for initiating carpet testing of localities that can cause the outbreak of the disease," he said.

Afzal said NDMA had planned to get 2,500 ventilators by the end of April that might not happen. "We have also requested the WHO for ventilators as well," he added.

However, there were improvisations made by dedicating almost 40 percent ventilators, which was around 1,348 in number for the COVID-19 patients, he said.

In case pressure escalates then additional 400 ventilators would be converted on the COVID pattern. "We can sustain 2,500-3,000 patients without major induction of ventilators whereas finally, we have 800-1,000 ventilators including non-invasive for normal patients, whereas non-invasive will be shifted to the COVID pattern."

By the end of April, Pakistan will receive 1,000 ventilators and in May another 1,000 will reach the country, the NDMA chairman said, while thanking the nation for the financial support to procure the equipment and also appreciated the role of world organisations in assisting Pakistan in the fight against COVID-19.