Federal govt decides to shut NCOC: sources

ISLAMABAD: Federal government has decided to shut National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC), a nerve centre for nationwide coordination on COVID-19 cases, at the end of the ongoing month, ARY NEWS reported.

According to sources privy to the matter, the NCOC will be dysfunctional by March 31 and the National Institute of Health (NIH) will monitor the COVID situation in the country from April 01.

“The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) at NIH, which is not fully functional currently, will be monitoring the COVID situation from April 01,” they said and added that currently, the record is being transferred from NCOC to CDC.

The NCOC was established in March 2020 and was headed by Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar and was responsible for coordination between centre and provinces for tackling the deadly infection across the country besides also managing resources for COVID control.

The NCOC is also responsible for preparing the national vaccination strategy.

Pakistan’s COVID-19 cases have witnessed a decline recently and on Friday, the country reported as many as 723 new Covid cases and seven fatalities in the last 24 hours, according to the government’s database.

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The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) said a total of 39,540 samples were tested, out of which 723 or 1.83 per cent turned out to be positive.

The nationwide tally of confirmed Covid cases stands at 1,517,512 while the death toll is 30,298. The number of critical Covid patients in various hospitals across the country has come down to 677.