Pakistan’s pandemic response body urges provinces to enforce health guidelines ahead of Eid Al-Adha

Traders unload cattle from a truck at a cattle market setup for the upcoming Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha in Karachi, Pakistan, on July 6, 2021. (AFP)

• The country’s leading association of medical professionals has already warned of a fourth wave of the pandemic
• Pakistan’s COVID-19 forum has also instructed all federating units to increase the pace of their immunization drive

ISLAMABAD: The National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), which is responsible for developing and coordinating Pakistan’s pandemic response, expressed its concern over the non-implementation of officially prescribed health guidelines during a meeting on Wednesday.
According to an official statement, the participants of the meeting reviewed the overall pandemic situation in the country while emphasizing the importance of taking strict precautionary measures ahead of the Islamic festival of Eid Al-Adha to prevent the virus spread.
“The forum expressed concerns over the non-implementation of the SOPs [standard operating procedures] in different sectors leading to a visible surge in Covid cases,” informed the statement. “All federating units were asked to devise stringent measures for the implementation of the Covid SOPs and [ensure] uninterrupted vaccination process.”
The NCOC maintained it was imperative to accelerate the process of reaching out to the masses since there were ample vaccination doses available in the country.
Pakistan reported a total number of 1,517 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 17 related deaths in the last 24 hours. It also witnessed a surge in the positivity rate that reached 3.27 percent during the same period.
The government started easing the coronavirus restrictions after a decline in the number of infections was reported in recent days.
A leading association of medical professionals in the country, however, question its decision, saying such measures would only lead to yet another spike in COVID-19 cases in Pakistan.
“Every time our number of cases start going down, we become complacent and reopen everything that leads to another wave [of the pandemic],” Dr. Qaisar Sajjad, secretary general of the Pakistan Medical Association, told Arab News last month.
“The [COVID-19] vaccination rate is slow across the country, and we can face another wave in the first week of August after Eid Al-Adha,” he added while urging people to get the jabs at the earliest to protect themselves from the virus.