Ajmal Wazir pins hope on success of smart lockdown strategy in KP

PESHAWAR: Adviser to Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on Information Ajmal Wazir said on Monday that the Pak-Afghan border was made operational by the incumbent federal government to resume trade activities in testing times during COVID-19 pandemic, ARY NEWS reported.

“Millions of people are associated with trade activities on both sides of the border,” he said adding that the prime minister allowed resuming activities at the border keeping in view the difficulties faced by the Afghan people.

Ajmal Wazir said that complete SOPs would be followed at Ghulam Khan and Torkham border crossings and one day at them is specified for passengers traveling on foot.

He said that the smart lockdown strategy would prove successful to deal with the pandemic. “We have so far conducted 124,000 coronavirus tests in the province out of which 3,416 tests were performed during the past 24 hours,” he said adding that as many as 6,536 patients have recovered from the infection.

Giving details of the health facilities available in the province to deal with COVID-19 patients, he said that 241 hospitals across the KP province were treating the virus patients and they have 1375 beds equipped with oxygen facility.

“The provincial hospitals have 343 ventilators available to deal with the virus patients and only 77 of them are currently occupied,” he said.

The information minister said that 805 patients are treated in the provincial hospitals while 13,835 of them are isolated at their homes.

While giving details of the provincial authorities’ actions to tackle swarms of locusts, he said that 80 teams of the provincial and federal departments comprising of 758 personnel and 78 vehicles were involved in dealing with locust attacks.

“We have carried out a survey and spray in 15 affected districts,” he said.