Over 3800 ventilators available in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning Asad Umar on Monday chaired meeting at National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) in Islamabad to review measures against COVID-19, ARY News reported.

Interior Minister Aijaz Shah, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Zafar Mirza, Moeed Yousuf were present during the meeting, while all chief secretaries of provinces attended the meeting via video link.

The meeting was briefed that there are currently 3844 ventilators available in the country, while 2000 more will be imported from China.

The meeting was told that there are 1697 ventilators in Punjab, 1550 in Sindh, 400 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 74 ventilators are available in hospitals across Balochistan.

Islamabad hospitals have 47 ventilators while 63 ventilators are present in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Earlier in the day, Chairman National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Lieutenant General Muhammad Afzal briefing Parliamentary Committee in Islamabad, said 500 ventilators will reach Pakistan on Thursday, while 29,000 protective kits for doctors and paramedics have been provided to provinces.

He said 137 hospitals, have exclusively been dedicated for the patients of Coronavirus and 22 laboratories are working across the country.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s coronavirus tally on Monday jumped to 3277 cases as 397 more COVID-19 patients were reported from across the country during the last 24-hours, the national dashboard maintained by the federal ministry of health showed.

According to the statistics on the dashboard, the death toll in the country from the virus has jumped to 50.

However, a positive development is witnessed in fight against coronavirus as 257 people recovered from the deadly infection, the previous day.

Giving a province-wide division of the patients, it showed that Punjab being the biggest province of the country has reported most cases that is 1493, followed by Sindh province that has 881 confirmed cases.