ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s federal information minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Tuesday the government would consider importing oxygen from China and Iran if a growing number of coronavirus cases caused shortages of oxygen in the country.
The minister was briefing the media about decisions taken in a federal cabinet meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
“The government, Fawad said, was also considering import of oxygen from China and Iran if the need arose,” state news agency APP reported. “Currently Pakistan was producing 792 metric tons of oxygen to meet the requirement of COVID-19 patients.”
“The situation in Pakistan would have [been] different had it not increased 7,000 ventilator beds and doubled the production of oxygen during the last one year,” the minister said, adding that the cabinet had also decided that oxygen meant for the industrial sector would be diverted to the health sector “if the situation worsened.”
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s southern Sindh province has decided to ban elective surgeries to divert oxygen to coronavirus patients:
In order to address the possibility of oxygen shortage due to rise in #COVID19 cases, #SindhGovt has decided to impose a complete ban on Elective Surgeries in public as well as private hospitals. It is clarified that surgeries in emergency cases will continue #SaveOxygen
— Murtaza Wahab Siddiqui (@murtazawahab1) April 26, 2021
Authorities in the capital city, Islamabad, also suspend all scheduled routine surgeries at public hospitals to divert available oxygen supplies to those suffering from COVID-19, Geo News reported.
About 5,075 coronavirus patients are in critical care in Pakistan currently, the highest number since the pandemic began in Pakistan in February last year.
