Staff Reporter
Islamabad
The National Command and Operation Centre noted on Friday that coronavirus cases saw a drop over the past five days after witnessing a continuous increase since the outbreak of the infection.
The meeting of the NCOC, chaired by Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar, was informed that around 103 more ventilators have been earmarked for serious Covid-19 patients, taking the total number of ventilators available for such patients across the country to 1,503.
It was informed that more ventilators are being procured on a fast-track basis to meet the further requirement of hospitals. More than 1,500 additional ventilators would be available by the end of July.
In order to ease the burden on major hospitals across the country, 2,150 additional oxygenated beds are being operationalised on a war footing.
Sixty beds would be added to hospitals in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 200 to Balochistan hospitals, 40 to hospitals in Gilgit Baltistan, 450 to the Islamabad Capital Territory hospitals, 400 to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa hospitals, 500 to Punjab hospitals and 500 to hospitals in Sindh.
The National Command and Operation Centre was told that testing capacity has increased by 65 times and is being further ramped up to more than 100,000 tests per day by mid July.
A total of 168,564 cases have been detected so far, including 769 in AJK, 8,998 in Balochistan, 1,225 in Gilgit Baltistan, 9,941 in Islamabad, 20,790 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 61,678 in Punjab and 65,163 in Sindh.
Punjab has recorded 1,540 new cases and 63 deaths over the past 24 hours, the government’s Covid-19 portal said.
Punjab has so far reported 61,678 cases — the second-highest in all provinces and territories in Pakistan. The death toll in Punjab, however, is the highest as the province has reported 1,265 casualties so far. About 17,892 people have recovered from the disease.
