Chinese embassy participates in tree plantation drive

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The Chinese Embassy in Islamabad has been actively taking part in Pakistan's Tree Plantation drive launched all over the country from August 9. 

"Ambassador Yao Jing planted a tree at the embassy today to echo the tree plantation of Prime Minister Imran Khan," the embassy tweeted on August 9. 

In two years the embassy has planted five hundred trees in the compound. Green Embassy, Green Pakistan,” it was further tweeted.

Saudi Arabia starts third phase of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Saudi Arabia, besides its own, will start the third phase of a clinical trial for a coronavirus vaccine in cooperation with China’s vaccine developing company Can Sino.

The trial will target 5,000 healthy volunteers in Saudi Arabia over the age of 18 years old, and the ministry was currently working on preparing to launch operations in three main cities of Riyadh, Dammam, and Mecca, according to a news report published on August 9, which quoted the Kingdom’s Ministry of Health. 

The first and second phases of the clinical trial of the Ad5-nCOV potential vaccine were conducted in China. 

The first phase conducted between March 16 to 27 and it included 108 volunteers while the second phase was carried on between April 11 to 16, having involved 603 volunteers. 

Can Sino’s vaccine uses a modified common cold virus to carry genetic material from the coronavirus into the human body. It elicits antibody and T-cell immune responses and did not prompt any serious side effects. 

Meanwhile, the Kingdom’s health authorities and organizations have been conducting their own coronavirus clinical trials. Last month, King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC) had invited Saudi hospitals to participate in several COVID-19 clinical trials approved by the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA). 

The first study ‘Avi Mild 19’ involved the drug favipiravir which was manufactured in Japan and used in cases of mild illness, according to SPA. The second was labelled ‘FACT’ involving a combination of favipiravir and the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine while the third is based on convalescent plasma and the fourth is a comparative study to assess the efficacy of each of the different coronavirus treatment protocols. 

Saudi Arabia has also been training dogs to sniff out COVID-19 infected individuals

PMA considers businesses reopening premature

By Mukhtar Alam
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Cautioning that the COVID-19 disease was not over in the country yet, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), on August 8, urged the government to ensure maintenance of related preventive measures above all.

In a statement the association regretted that 80 to 85% people did not follow the standard operating procedures (SOPs) nowadays. 

“Even at the government offices people do not adopt preventive measures while it is the responsibility of the government to implement SOPs strictly,” it was pointed out. 

The statement issued by the PMA Secretary General, Dr Qaiser Sajjad, reckoned that the government had taken the decision of reopening almost all the businesses across the country in haste. 

“We are still under quarantine period for monitoring corona cases and only after five to six days we will be able to know how many new cases have emerged after Eid,” he stated. 

The PMA brought to light the fact that the other countries including United States, England, Brazil, Australia, China and South Korea, who had eased their lockdowns and opened different sectors in view of their subsiding cases of COVID-19, were once again reporting cases which have increased in the second phase there. 

“We are scared that our graph may not increase again. It could increase the burden over our hospitals and healthcare workers like it happened after Eid-ul-Fitr,” the PMA Secretary feared. 

The PMA felt that the decision about resumption of different sectoral activities, businesses, educational institutions, travelling and tourism should have been made after upcoming festivals and events like Independence Day, Muharram and Rabi-ul-Awwal.

Coronavirus Update: Sindh still threatened

By Mukhtar Alam
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Sindh still remained threatened by COVID-19 with its maximum of 300 new infections, among the provinces, on August 8 when the authorities confirmed testing of 10,001 samples across the province during the last 24 hours.

According to official data, Sindh was followed, in term of number of tests, by Punjab (7,114 tests with 137 positive cases), KPK (2314 with 96 new cases) and Balochistan (697 with 49 cases). Pakistan overall had 634 new cases on August 8. 

In Sindh, surprisingly, the LUMHS laboratory at Hyderabad performed as many as 5,262 samples during the last 24 hours ending on August 8 afternoon but did not find any positive case while other laboratories operating in the interior districts of the province gave 3 to 14% positive results for COVID-19, according to an official data. 

The Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, in his daily COVId-19 statement, remarked that as many as 450 patients had recovered from the diseases during the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cured patients to 114,515 for the province. 

He further said that as of August 8, there were 5,869 active patients of COVID-19 in the province, including 5,489 at homes, six at isolation centres and 374 at hospitals.

A total of 254 patients were told undergoing there critical phase of their illness, while 44 of them were put on ventilators.

Without giving any details about hospitalization, age, gender and districts of the deceased patients, the statement mentioned that three more COVID-19 fatalities had taken across the province, taking the total of deaths to 2,262.

In the meantime, Karachi witnessed an increase of 22% in its daily new cases, in comparison to August 7 numbers.

A total of 4,415 samples were taken up by 14 testing establishment in the city during the last 24 hours, out of which 335 were found positive for COVID-19, including 277 new infections.

Karachi, in terms of new cases, was followed by Hyderabad (9), Thatta (8), Badin (7), Dadu (7), Larkana (6), Jamshoro (4), Shikarpur (3), Sukkur (3), Umerkot (2) and Shaheed Benazirabad (2) while Mirpurkhas and Sanghar reported one cases each, among other districts.

Sindh’s overall infection rate was 15% compared to Pakistan’s 13% on August 8.