Sindh Minister for Health and Population Welfare, Dr. Azra Pechuho, has stressed on maintaining Non Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) and curtailing railway operations to do away with the considerable risks of spreading Covid due to movement of people after EidulFitr.
She voiced the concerns in an online meeting of NCOC that was also attended by Secretary Health, Dr. Kazim Jatoi and Deputy Secretary, Dr. Mansoor Wassan via online link, said a hand out issued here on Wednesday.
The minister gave details of Covid infection patterns from last year and said that after the Eid holidays, the rate of infections increased by threefold.
She added that she expects this pattern to hold this year as well, however the baseline is much higher this time around and so the numbers will be significantly larger.
Due to people travelling back and forth for Eid Holidays, the risk of spreading infections is already considerable and we will see Covid positive cases rising.
In regards to the relaxing of SOPs, Sindh Minister for Health and Population Welfare, Dr. Azra Pechuho stated that allowing 70% occupancy in railway carriages should be reconsidered and that Sindh would urge railway operations to be curtailed for at least the next 7 to 10 days and the situation should be reviewed again thereafter.
The minister also observed that there have been over 25 Covid positive cases confirmed through airline travel and that Sindh Health Department will be conducting genomic sequence studies on the samples found to determine which variants are found.
International travel is exacerbating the rise and spread of infections and that we have to be more stringent at airports with rapid antigen testing as well as PCR.
It is also probably that international travelers may not exhibit symptoms till a week-10 days after landing and would be spreading the virus within their communities as quarantine on international travelers is not being implemented.
The minister concluded that NPI’s should be maintained and not doing so will make things worse in regards to Covid.
