China preparing to send medical experts to help Pakistan fight COVID-19

By Masood Sattar Khan 
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The Chinese government, upon the request of its Pakistan counterparts, has started preparations for sending a team of medical experts to Pakistan to fight Coronavirus (COVID-19). 

The Vice Minister of China’s National Health Commission, Zeng Yixin, made the announcement in Beijing in a press conference on March 26. He made these remarks while briefing media on China's cooperation with the international community in fighting the COVID-19. 

He revealed that China has immediately shared the COVID-19 related knowledge, prevention and control plan, and diagnosis and treatment plan with Pakistan since the virus outbreak in Pakistan. 

China also has introduced its experience in preventing, controlling, diagnosing and treating COVID-19 and other issues to Pakistan via video conference. 

At the press conference, Deng Boqing, Vice Chairman of the China International Development Cooperation Agency, added that China would like to share prevention and control experience with Pakistan in response to the COVID-19 challenge. 

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in Pakistan, China has provided Pakistan four batches of medical supplies, including detection reagents, medical protective gowns, N95 face masks, surgical face masks and breathing machines. 

Moving forward, China is preparing to provide Pakistan with more urgently needed and scarce medical supplies and equipment. In addition, China will also assist Pakistan in building a makeshift hospital for isolation. 

When attending the press conference, Luo Zhaohui, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, disclosed that China has sent seven batches of medical experts groups to five countries (Iran, Iraq, Italy, Serbia and Cambodia) since sending the first group to Iran in February 27. It may be noted Luo Zhaohui had also served as Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan. 

“Each and every medical experts group, who brave the coronavirus to rescue people, has won warm welcome from the local governments and peoples,” Luo said. 

According to the reports published in the Chinese media, The medical rescue team to be sent to Pakistan will be established by medical workers in China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region while according to the earlier practices that each province is responsible for organizing a medical aid team.  Xinjiang has donated a batch of medical supplies to Pakistan, which arrived in the country on March 20. 

Besides government, the Chinese companies have been proactively helping Pakistan fight against the epidemic. On March 25, the first batch of relief materials donated by China’s Alibaba Foundation and Jack Ma Foundation arrived at Karachi. 

The two Foundations will send the second and third batches of relief materials to Pakistan within a week, according to the Consulate-General of China in Karachi. 

“At the non-government level, enterprise and civil societies have joined one after another in the relay race of making donations to Pakistan,” Li Bijian, Consul General of China in Karachi, said.  

COVID-19 has been spreading rapid in Pakistan since the first two confirmed cases were reported on February 26. As of the morning of March 26, Pakistan has seen 1,102 confirmed cases with eight deaths while 21 patients were cured and discharged from hospital.

Photo Feature: Coronavirus brings world to standstill

Pakistan News & Features Services

The pandemic of Coronavirus (COVID-19) has rocked the entire world. The busiest of places have become deserted. The noisiest of spots have pin-drop silence now. 

There’s shock, gloom, grief, tension and apprehension in every nook and corner of the planet. 

As these photographs will explain, the once booming capitals have been massively hurt by the spreading virus. 

Beaches, hotels, golf courses, amusement parks, playgrounds, restaurants, movie theatres, shopping centres, tourist attractions, airports, railway stations, ports and harbours besides other recreational facilities, which remained crowded all along, look like haunted places these days.

Be it the Times Square or the World Trade Centre in New York City, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC or any square in Berlin or Munich they remain deserted. 

The historic Italian cities of Rome and Milan look vacant and unoccupied. The charming city of Paris doesn’t have visitors either. 

The Las Ramblas Street in Barcelona and the downtown London could be found empty during rush hours. 

The theatres in Moscow are as devoid of audience as the diners in the restaurants of Beijing. The magnificent beaches of Los Angeles and Sydney don’t have visitors now. 

There are very few people at the otherwise buzzing airports of Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul, Hong Kong and Dubai as there are travel bans in place at most destinations. 

Life has come to standstill in Iran following the massive outbreak while the Far Eastern countries like Indonesia and Malaysia have also been bruised. 

Coronavirus has crippled the life in Pakistan too with the preemptive lockdowns forcing the people to stay indoors.

                                                                Berlin, Germany 

Bogota, Columbia 

Caracus, Venezuela 

Hong Kong

Karachi, Pakistan

London, UK

Milan, Italy

Moscow, Russia 

Munich, Germany

New York, USA

Paris, France

Seoul, South Korea

Sydney, Australia

Tehran, Iran

Tokyo, Japan

Toronto, Canada

                                                            Washington DC, USA

Wuhan to lift outbound traffic restrictions on April 8

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

China's Wuhan, the epicenter of Coronavirus (COVID-19), will open travel to outside the city on April 8, with other parts of Hubei province ending their lockdown, according to a government announcement. 

The provincial government also announced that people will need to show a health code, a digital health certificate issued by the province, when leaving the province. Wuhan will continue stringent traffic control until April 8. 

However, starting on March 25, the migrant workers in Wuhan, who hold a green health code and wish to return to work outside the city, could be transported in groups directly to their destinations after passing a nucleic acid test for novel Coronavirus, according to the announcement. 

The other travelers with a green health code will be able to leave the city on April 8 while people from other provinces will be able to travel within the province with the health code issued by their original provincial regions without the need to present other certificates. 

Wuhan will gradually resume production based on epidemic risk evaluation. The opening time of school, including colleges, kindergartens and vocational institutions, is still postponed and will be set at a later time, the announcement added.

JPMC needs resources to meet bigger challenges

By Mukhtar Alam 
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), the biggest public sector tertiary health care facility in Sindh, is in dire need of more resources to cope with the bigger challenges.

“The government health facilities are pretty good as far as the availability of trained staff is concerned, but they are weak in money. They need a lot of equipment and financial aid,” Dr Seemi Jamali, Executive Director, JPMC, reckoned. 

The JPMC authorities kept an eye closely on the issues relating to the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) as it spread into Pakistan from the neighbouring countries. 

“We had taken it as a challenge and did a lot to in this regard in the preceding weeks. We kept modifying things on a daily basis after having vacated a whole block for such patients,” Dr Seemi Jamali stated. 

Talking about doctors and paramedical staff, she said that the juniors were being motivated on a daily basis. 

Earlier a team of the World Health Organization (WHO) had undertaken a visit to the JPMC to see the preparations and measures being employed to tackle Coronavirus. 

The WHO team, headed by their country representative in Pakistan, Dr Palitha Gunarathna Mahipala, expressed satisfaction over safety methods and screening systems employed at the healthcare centre for possible Coronavirus patients.

Pakistan willing to learn from China to combat Coronavirus

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health, Dr Zafar Mirza, stated that Pakistan was willing to learn more from China's experience. 

“We will further strengthen exchanges and cooperation on epidemic prevention and control to achieve this goal,” he stated after his meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan, Yao Jing, in Islamabad. 

They exchanged views on the current prevention and steps to rein in the COVID-19 outbreak in Pakistan. 

“Ever since the outbreak of the new Coronavirus in Pakistan, China and Pakistan have maintained close communication. We are thankful to the Chinese government, local governments, enterprises and non-governmental friendly people for providing Pakistan with a lot of medical supplies,” Dr Zafar Mirza remarked. 

“Under the leadership of the Chinese Communists party and government, the Chinese people widely succeeded in defeating the epidemic and provided a model for the global response to the epidemic,” he complimented. 

The Chinese Ambassador didn’t mince words in describing Coronavirus as a test which the world was facing. Since the outbreak, the Pakistani government and all sections of society have expressed understanding and support for China's fight against the epidemic, and provided assistance. 

Ambassador Yao specially mentioned President Dr Arif Alvi’s recent visit to China in person. 

“The Chinese government and people have also provided assistance to Pakistan and will continue to stand firmly with the Pakistani people and take more positive measures to support the Pakistani response to the epidemic by jointly fighting the epidemic, China-Pakistan's all-weather strategic cooperative partnership will be further deepened, and the foundation of the China-Pakistan community of shared destiny will be more solid,” the Chinese Ambassador added.

China helps Serbia to halt virus spreading

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services) 

China has flown in six doctors, ventilators and medical masks to Serbia to help Belgrade halt spreading of the Coronavirus pandemic, which has wreaked havoc in Europe and rest of the world. 

The Serbian President, Aleksandar Vucic, expressed his gratitude to the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, the Chinese communist party and the Chinese people.

"The arrival of Chinese health professionals is of great importance to us because they were the first to defeat the great enemy of today: COVID-19," the Serbian President remarked. 

"Everything on this plane is free-of-charge assistance, a donation from the People's Republic of China. We should thank them with all our hearts, they have proven to be great friends of Serbia and Serbs," he added. 

Serbia's largest aircraft, the Airbus A330, landed in from China with the largest shipment of aid to Serbia including medical devices, security equipment and six Chinese experts

The medical aid packages that came from China read in Chinese language and in Cyrillic: "The friendship of steel, we share the good and the evil!" with a heart that had the flag of Serbia on one side, and the flag of China on the other.

China's ambassador to Belgrade, Chen Bo, said the aid was a sign of the "iron friendship" between the two countries. 

China has also extended loans worth billions of dollars to build railways, roads and power plants in Serbia and bought the country’s only copper mine and a steel plant.

Coronavirus provides opportunity to unite

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

“Coronavirus (COVID-19) has brought untold miseries in a shortest period of time, in almost the whole world. All countries, including Pakistan, are bravely facing it. China where it first surfaced is the worst affected, but as usual China distinguished itself by leading to fight it with supersonic speed matching the speed with which this deadly virus came. The resolve, determination, plans and the speed of response of China has generated great hope that this virus will soon end. The full damage is not likely to be ascertained soon, but it will be of astronomical magnitude and shall leave its lasting effect.” 

This was observed by Senator Nisar Memon, a former federal minister, in a recently published newspaper article. 

“It has come in at the very beginning of this decade when children of Mother Earth were tackling the challenges of climate change disasters, poverty, injustices, violation of human rights in occupied Jammu & Kashmir in India, threats of using water as instrument of war, unprecedented economic burden of inflation in Pakistan brought about by wavery governance, unfinished war in Syria, increasing illegal annexation of Palestinian land by Israel, and global refugees,” he opined. 

“Presently the worst affected countries by CODIV-19 after China and Iran are Italy and Spain. It’s fast spreading in rest of Europe too. The reasons appear to be delayed understanding of this virus and consequently inadequate preparedness to stop its spread,” the Senator reckoned. 

“The countries and multilateral agencies have woken up to contain further damage. USA, the super-power with experience and scientific and technological capability was too focused on internal matters, including the Presidential elections and its economic and political war with China. Therefore it responded late but has developed vaccine against this virus,” he added. 

“Pakistan’s new federal coalition government that acquired the power in August 2018, at the break of virus news was involved in launching tirade against its opponents, against corruption using mainly the institution and instruments of National Accountability Bureau, trying different teams for economic recovery finally settling for IMF experience team, proving its credentials and credibility, taking on the media which earlier was its ‘darling’ but the most significant and dangerous is its fight against the only province-Sindh, where a national opposition party won the elections and formed single party government,” Senator Nisar Memon wrote. 

“In this backdrop comes COVID-9 from not far off but from next door neighbor, not from a hostile country but a closest friend China. We had all the time and means to act fast but it is believed that despite good statements full gamut of problem was not addressed in coordinated way,” he felt. 

“It is duly recognized by all and sundry that Sindh government demonstrated leadership and Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah led from the front and put in early preventive actions and succeeded with very few contained virus cases. As lone warrior he is on record urging the federal government’s attention and support. Unfortunately, the inborn political hostility dominated federal leadership behavior and the lukewarm response did the damage that was to come,” the former federal minister regretted.

“The single most opportunity is to build our Health System on urgent and emergent basis and in this not only federal, provincial and local governments will be one but all friendly countries, regional alliances like SAARC and SCO, international bodies like UN, IMF, WB and above all our private sector Corporate Social Responsibility programs shall join, if the political leadership lead the way,” he proposed. 

“The Health Emergency can be declared with appropriate organization to ensure a Command & Control System is in place. The short-term gain is responding to this virus but the long term gain is what we have not done that is a robust health system for our people. The think-tanks, heath NGOs, health professionals and practitioners will be more than happy to join the national efforts,” the Senator thought. 

“The politically divided nation while uniting on health will pave the way to unite on all other needed challenges. Just one successful model is needed. This will discourage and disregard all negative propaganda in the way to meeting the virus challenge. This will also dissuade the ill-advised persons to converge their energies on these positive efforts rather than creating confusion on our foreign policy like the former spokesperson has done by releasing statement and many others like her. This initiative will also wake up those citizens who are in denial mode regarding the urgency of response to this challenge,” he concluded.

Shabbir Ibne Adil braves Coronavirus lockdown, continues great work

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

During a period when almost every conceivable activity has been halted due to the threats of Coronavirus pandemic, Shabbir Ibne Adil has set an example by continuing his noble work from the platform of Idarae Ilm Dost which he had founded with the collaboration of some like-minded intellectuals. 

Being an intellectual and a social worker is another matter but engaging into welfare pursuits at a time when there is virtual lockdown and people are refraining from leaving their houses is something beyond the call of duty and it merits lavish praise. 

On March 19, 2020, yes the date has to be remembered because of the ongoing lockdown, Shabbir Ibne Adil paid a visit to the Shah Muhi-ul-Haq Academy which is located in Karachi’s outskirts, Gulshan-e-Maymar to be precise.

A resident of Gulistan-e-Jauhar, he drove all the way to Gulshan-e-Maymar with his gift package of 25 books which he donated to Shah Muhi-ul-Haq Academy for their library housed there. 

The academy, which has been carrying out literary and cultural activities regularly, has been established in the memory of the late Shah Muhi-ul-Haq Farooqui, who was a great scholar. 

Upon arrival at the academy, Shabbir Ibne Adil was warmly greeted by Tasneem-ul-Haq Farooqui, who also happens to be one of the founding members of Idarae Ilm Dost. Both the gentlemen shook hands intensely, something many people are keen on avoiding these days.

Sir Syed University warned for Coronavirus violation

Pakistan News & Features Services 

The Sir Syed University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi, has been warned for violating the government directives regarding prevention from Coronavirus epidemic. 

According to details, the Deputy Commissioner Karachi East had visited the SSUET, located in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, on March 17 to check the precautionary measures against Coronavirus, which were supposed to be taken by the university management. 

Accompanied by the SHO Gulshan-e-Iqbal, the Deputy Commissioner East was believed to have been surprised at having found the institution open with around 1,000 plus teaching and non-teaching staff in attendance at campus on duty in violation of the directives from the federal and provincial governments. 

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) had also advised the university for adoption of safety precautions against Coronavirus epidemic which were ignored. 

Coronavirus has been declared a serious epidemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). The federal government has announced closure of all schools, colleges, universities and other educational institutions till April 5 while the Sindh government has announced closure of academic institutions till May 30 due to serious threat of Coronavirus which has assumed serious threat globally. 

The SSUET has been warned that strict disciplinary action would be taken against the institution if found open again in violation of the government directives.

Polio kiosks set up at airports

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Rotary, one of the largest voluntary service organizations of the world, has a visible presence at the various airports of Pakistan as it has facilitated in setting up polio kiosks at departure as well as arrival lounges. 

The National Chair of Pakistan National Polio Plus Committee (PNPPC), Aziz Memon, also a former Governor of Rotary International in Pakistan, informed PNFS that the polio kiosks have been set up at all major airports of the country to cover the children in transit, as per directives of the government. 

According to details, the PNPPC was requested by national and provincial authorities to provide polio kiosks at all visible points of airports. Because of its location, the polio kiosks are easily visible and accessible. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) was then advised to arrange for the polio vaccinators at each kiosk. These polio kiosks are installed at outside of departure and arrival lounges of the airports. 

The PNPPC has set up as many as polio kiosks at the Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, as per specification provided by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). These polio kiosks have been installed just outside of domestic and International departure and arrival lounges. 

There are three polio teams at each kiosks working round the clock at the airport and the average vaccination coverage is close to 350 children per day. 

Besides Karachi, the PNPPC has set up two polio kiosks each at Multan, Peshawar and Quetta airports to cover transit children.