Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has said that his government under the guidelines of World Health Organization (WHO) is making all out efforts to contain the fourth wave of COVID-19 in the province.
He was talking to WHO Representative and Head of Mission Pakistan Dr. PalithaMahipala here on Thursday at CM House.
The meeting was attended by Minister Health Dr. AzraFazalPechuho, PSCM Sajid Jamal Abro, Secretary Health DrKazimJatoi and Head of Office, WHO Sindh Dr Sara Salman.
The chief minister and the WHO Pakistan chief discussed COVID situation in the country, particularly in Sindh and the measures taken by the provincial government to control the situation.
The chief minister said that every day around 20,000 PCR tests were conducted in the province against which over 10 percent of patients were being detected. He added that out of over 48,000 total COVID patients, 1,463 have been admitted in hospitals.
Talking about vaccination drives in the province, Shah said that so far 8,599,197 doses of vaccine have been administered, which means over 25 percent eligible population for vaccines have been covered so far. “We are administering over 200,000 vaccines every day,” he said.
Dr. Mahipala admired the efforts of Sindh province to contain the situation. He said that there was a need to launch a campaign to educate people to implement Public Health measures which include wearing of masks, ensuring social distancing, and hand hygiene.
The WHO and Health department agreed to work together to start the campaign from 13 August 2021
Discussing the possibilities of increasing testing capacity in Sindh the WHO country chief Dr. PalithaMahipala assured his full support and also announced to donate 10,000 viral transport mediums to the Sindh government.
The chief minister, Dr. Palitha and provincial health minister discussed case management of COVID cases. Dr. Palitha appreciated the training program conducted so far and vowed to extend WHO support for capacity building of senior clinicians in Sindh to further improve case management.
The WHO appraised the Sindh government on donation of ventilators, ICU Beds, Cardiac monitors and Pulse Oximeters, IPC and Lab supplies which were handed over to improve the health system capacity in Sindh.
