COVID-19 cases witnessed drop for fifth consecutive day: NCOC

ISLAMABAD: The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) noted on Friday that coronavirus cases saw a drop over the past five days after witnessing a continuous increase since the outbreak of the infection.

Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar chaired a meeting of the NCOC.

The meeting was informed that around 103 more ventilators have been earmarked for serious COVID-19 patients, taking the total number of ventilators available for such patients across the country to 1,503.

It was informed that more ventilators are being procured on a fast-track basis to meet the further requirement of hospitals. More than 1,500 additional ventilators would be available by the end of July.

In order to ease the burden on major hospitals across the country, 2,150 additional oxygenated beds are being operationalised on a war footing.

60 beds would be added to hospitals in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), 200 to Balochistan hospitals, 40 to hospitals in Gilgit Baltistan (GB), 450 to the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) hospitals, 400 to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) hospitals, 500 to Punjab hospitals and 500 to hospitals in Sindh.

The NCOC was told that testing capacity has increased by 65 times and is being further ramped up to more than 100,000 tests per day by mid July.

Around 546 ventilators were occupied across Pakistan where a total of active COVID-19 cases stand at 100,450.

A total of 165,062 cases were detected so far, including 769 in AJK, 8,998 in Balochistan, 1,225 in Gilgit Baltistan, 9,941 in Islamabad, 20,182 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 61,678 in Punjab and 62,269 in Sindh.