Staff Reporter
Peshawar
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has announced that it will soon recruit 1,200 more doctors across the medical facilities in the province to help contain the coronavirus’s outbreak. The decision was announced by KP Information Minister Ajmal Wazir in a news conference on Sunday. Wazir also announced a complete ban on public transport for a week starting from Monday March 23 at 9am. The ban does not apply to private vehicles or those used to transport goods, he clarified.
‘The chief minister has taken these steps to ensure that citizens remain safe,’ said Wazir. ‘Italy is far more developed than we are but look what happened to them.’ The minister was referring to the increasing death toll in Italy as it struggles to control with the outbreak and is now the country with the most recorded death from the coronavirus.
In KP, as of Sunday morning, 31 known cases of the coronavirus and two deaths have been reported. A partial lockdown is already in place in the province. On Saturday, the KP government announced that all markets, shopping malls and restaurants will remain closed from Sunday 9am to Tuesday 9am. Home delivery services will continue. The order will not be applicable to pharmacies, grocery stores, milk shops, petrol pumps, fruit, and vegetable and meat shops.
Meanwhile, it is reported that all bazars shopping centers, hotels and restaurants remained closed on Sunday after notification issued by government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in connection of coronavirus. The provincial government notified to close all bazars from March 22 till March 24 for three days across the province. In other notification the government also imposed ban on public transport that all inter-district public transport will remain suspended with immediate effect for a period of one week from March 23.
