National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Chairman Lieutenant General Muhammad Afzal has said that Pakistan will start conducting 50,000 coronavirus tests a day from next week as a meeting held at the National Command and Operations Centre has decided that virus detection kits would be provided to all departments concerned at the earliest.
Speaking to journalists, the NDMA chairman said that earlier only those who showed symptoms of the coronavirus were being tested, but the authorities are now shifting to randomised testing for effective implementation of the government’s plans to curb the menace of COVID-19 that has so far claimed 251 lives in Pakistan and left over 12,000 people sick across the country.
Lt Gen Afzal added that 800,000 testing kits were available and efforts were being made to procure more.
On April 11, the NDMA received a medical consignment from China consisting of 59 ventilators, about 936 kilogrammes (kg) of surgical masks, protective suits, safety lenses, thermometers, and 1,720 kg of unstitched cloth for surgical gowns, all of which were distributed among provinces.
Meanwhile, according to Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) Major General Babar Iftikhar, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa has instructed the military to help civilian administration during the holy month of Ramzan that has arrived amid the global coronavirus pandemic.
“COAS held a special conference at General Headquarters (GHQ) today where the overview of the coronavirus deployment and situation was taken into account. COAS instructed all commanders to ensures border security and carry out routine activities as per schedule,” the military spokesperson said while addressing a press conference on Friday.
“The army chief gave the instruction to work with civil authorities to ease the difficulties being faced by the people during Ramzan,” he said.
A potential antiviral drug for the coronavirus has reportedly failed in its first randomised clinical trial, Financial Times reported.
According to reports, there had been widespread hope that remdesivir could treat the new coronavirus — COVID-19 — that has left at least 191,000 people dead and 2.7 million infected across the globe.
But a Chinese trial showed that the drug had not been successful, according to draft documents accidentally published by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The drug did not improve patients’ condition or reduce the pathogen’s presence in the bloodstream, it said.
Researchers studied 237 patients, giving the drug to 158 and comparing their progress with the remaining 79. The drug also showed significant side effects in some, which meant 18 patients were taken off it.
Interest in the drug, had been high as there are currently no approved treatments or preventive vaccines for COVID-19, and doctors are desperate for anything that might alter the course of the disease that attacks the lungs and can shut down other organs in extremely severe cases.
The United States (US) firm behind the drug, Gilead Sciences, is testing it in multiple trials, and highly anticipated trial results from a study involving 400 patients hospitalised with severe cases of the illness are expected later this month.
It says the WHO documents mischaracterised the study.
Remdesivir, which previously failed as a treatment for Ebola, is being tried against COVID-19 because it is designed to disable the mechanism by which certain viruses, including the new coronavirus, make copies of themselves and potentially overwhelm their host’s immune system.
The number of estimated coronavirus cases in Pakistan can rise to 200,000 by mid-July if “effective interventions” are not taken, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned.
According to WHO Director General (DG) Dr Tedros Adhanom, who was speaking at the launch of a virtual conference titled “Pakistan National Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan”, without effective interventions, there could be an estimated 200,000 cases by mid-July, the impacts of which on the economy could be devastating and double the number of people living in poverty.
"When this year began, little was known about #COVID19. Now, it has spread globally, upending health systems and economies, and putting lives and livelihoods at risk"-@DrTedros at the Launch of #Pakistan National Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan virtual conference pic.twitter.com/XKLUEifu5H
A large number of users are switching to Wikipedia as a trusted source to share and find COVID-19 updates. Around 4,504 Wikipedia pages have been created to record different aspects of the pandemic like it’s spread to different countries, research to find its treatment and popular conspiracy theories, a private media outlet reported.
Although the information on Wikipedia is available in 130+ languages, however, the English-language articles on Wikipedia about the virus alone have registered over 240 million views.
The report also says that Wikipedia Foundation observed a record five-years high traffic, with over 673 million page views in a single day –the traffic was mostly — if not completely to COVID-19 articles.
On March 12, 2020, the day World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic, the main English Wikipedia article on virus received over 1.4m page views; which means that it increased by 73 per cent from the day before WHO’s declaration.
BATTLING MISINFORMATION
It is not easy to control misinformation, that is why a dedicated page titled as ‘Misinformation related to the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic’ is constantly charting and debunking falsehoods on the outbreak. Also, a large number of people are editing information by citing credible sources.
Hello, everybody.
Coronavirus news is piling up, and Wikipedia editors are keeping pace. We've seen more than 12k edits by 1.9k editors on Wikipedia's article about the pandemic.
According to the editor, the key to maintain accuracy on the platform is to cite sources, a single line cited with the credible source will be published but a complete paragraph written by a doctor, without citation will not be published on the platform.
The first case of COVID-19 was reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late November 2019. Since then, the virus has spread across the globe, infecting over 2.5 million people as of April 22.
However, the disease that has wreaked havoc in the developed world, has failed to prove as severe in a developing country like Pakistan. While the number of confirmed cases has risen far beyond a few hundred thousands in countries such as the United States (US) and Italy, Pakistan’s tally of COVID-19 cases stands at a relatively meager rate of 10,072 of which 2,156 have recovered and 212 have lost their lives.
This raises an interesting question: how has a country with far less resources successfully weathered a storm that has brought wealthier states to their knees?
The first possible explanation can be that the countries’ populace is more resistant to being infected by the virus. Usually, this resistance can only be imparted to humans based on previous exposure to the organism, which is also the basis of most vaccinations used to immune the masses.
The second possibility can be other diseases and vaccines that most probably granted resistance to people living in these areas.
Many diseases are endemic to this part of the World. Tuberculosis is one of the most commonly seen conditions, the treatment of which is also available. The Bacillus-Calmette Guerin (BCG) Vaccine is mandatory for newborns in countries such as Pakistan, India and Nigeria.
This same vaccine, however, is not mandatory in the developed world. It seems that countries that administer the BCG vaccine have reported far less cases of COVID-19 than those who do not.
No direct evidence, however, has so far surfaced in this regard.
Another disease endemic to these parts of the world is Malaria. At least 19 countries, including Pakistan bear 98 per cent of the global Malaria burden and hydroxychloroquine is used to treat it.
It has been observed that countries, where Malaria is rampant and hydroxychloroquine is routinely administered to patients, have encountered far less cases of COVID-19. Pakistan, India and Nigeria are among these countries. Unfortunately, just like the BCG vaccine, the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19 cases has not yet been proven, but it has been approved for use in emergency cases by the US’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The diseases commonly encountered in a region are not the only distinctive feature of the environment of that region — a widely held perception is that COVID-19 is less dangerous in warmer parts of the world. It is to be noted that warmer countries have also been hit by the pandemic.
Several other factors can be at play here.
Perhaps a less virulent strain of COVID-19 is encountered by people in these regions?
COVID-19 exists as two strains; a less common S-type strain (seen in 30% of COVID-19 cases) which was the original strain, and the more frequently encountered L-type strain (inflicting 70% of COVID-19 cases).
The World Health Organization (WHO) believes it is natural for viruses to mutate from one form to another and no strain is particularly more dangerous than the other. Age may play an important role in how rapidly the virus spreads as countries such as Italy and France, which have a higher percentage of old people, have fared worse against COVID-19 than countries such as Pakistan with a younger population.
There is also the possible case that less people are being tested for COVID-19 in developing countries leading to a lower number of confirmed cases. It must be noted, however, that the mortality rate is lower as well.
Clearly more research has to be conducted into what has allowed countries such as Pakistan to handle the COVID-19 pandemic better than the others across the globe. It could be any one of the factors discussed here or a combination of the variables that allowed it to withstand the worst of the COVID-19 situation.
In a rare glimpse inside a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan amid global suspicions about the COVID-19 pandemic, scenes from the “secretive” Institute of Virology have sent shockwaves over the internet.
According to Mail Online, pictures from inside the laboratory show a broken seal on the door of one of the refrigerators used to hold 1,500 different strains of virus, including the bat coronavirus that has jumped to humans with over 2.4 million infections and over 165,000 deaths since the first case in November last year.
The pictures, first released by a state-owned Chinese newspaper in 2018, were also published on Twitter last month, before being deleted.
Meanwhile, according to New York Post, the director of the lab denies that the bug accidentally spread from his facility.
“There’s no way this virus came from us,” Yuan Zhiming, director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, told state media.
Yuan admitted that the lab is studying “different areas related to the coronavirus,” but told the English-language state broadcaster CGTN that none of his staff has been infected.
“As people who carry out viral studies we clearly know what kind of research is going on at the institute and how the institute manages viruses and samples,” he said.
He said that since the lab is in Wuhan “people can’t help but make associations”, but claimed that some media outlets are “deliberately trying to mislead people”.
But officials in the past have raised concerns over the safety conditions of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In March 2018, US science diplomats dispatched to the lab issued two “sensitive” diplomatic cables about inadequate safety measures at the lab, the Washington Post reported, citing intelligence sources.
The first cable warned the experiments conducted in the lab on coronavirus in bats “represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic,” according to the report.
The cable, written by two US-China embassy officials, said there is a “serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” according to the report.
After a long wait and some hitches along the way, the cast and crew of Ishrat Made in China including Sanam Saeed, Shamoon Abbasi, Mohib Mirza and Sara Loren have tested negative for COVID-19. They had returned from Thailand on April 14 on a special flight arranged by the Government of Pakistan after being stranded there for almost two weeks.
Sanam took to social media to share the results and thank Deputy Commissioner Islamabad for his support and assistance. The actor also cleared the air regarding the issues they had faced upon their arrival back home.
Smokers are 14 times more vulnerable to contraction of coronavirus as compared with those who do not smoke, Al-Jazeera reported.
It quoted the president of Turkish Green Crescent, Professor Mucahit Ozturk, as urging smokers to quit for protecting themselves from the contagion.
“Using tobacco and tobacco products increases the risk of catching the coronavirus, therefore, avoiding all addictive substances plays an important role in protecting ourselves against the virus,” Ozturk said.
Prof Ozturk emphasised that smoking weakened the immune system and had a dire impact on coronavirus treatment as well.
“A weak immune system poses a threat to your health since it delays the treatment process and makes treatment difficult during the epidemic, even if you occasionally use addictive substances,” he said.
“Smoking can cause damage to the lungs and block the cough reflex so viruses and bacteria could stick to the airways and lungs, which could lead to serious infections.”
Earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) also said smokers are likely to be more vulnerable to the virus as fingers are in contact with the lips, which increases the possibility of hand-to-mouth transmission.
European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention cited a research by Chinese doctors as per which “acute smokers are at a higher risk of dying than the elderly”.
Smokers should quit because “the human body is programmed to recover from the moment you stop smoking,” Ozturk said.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Public Health Director Dr Ikramullah Khan has tested positive for the new coronavirus — COVID-19 –, provincial Health Minister Taimur Khan Jhagra revealed on Monday.
1. Today, one of our most committed public health professionals, and part of our COVID19 response team, Dr. Ikramullah, Director Public Health KP has tested positive for Corona virus. I just talked to him. He is in high spirits, feeling good, and isolated at his home.
The minister paid tribute to Dr Ikramullah, thanking him for his service and calling him an asset everyone was proud of. He also lauded the efforts of “thousands of other frontline workers” fighting the virus in the province and all across Pakistan.
The minister was of the view that the next few months would be difficult on many fronts but he and his team members were committed to beat the virus with “resolve, discipline and unity”.
KP’s focal person on coronavirus, Zain Raza, also wished Dr Ikramullah “speedy recovery and health”, acknowledging his role as being on the frontline of the province’s coronavirus response team.
IPSOS is an international firm that produces data on the global market and public opinion across the world. From April 4 to 7, they polled 1,000 people across Pakistan to evaluate how Pakistanis treated myths and misconceptions regarding COVID-19.
The sample size is from all the provinces and territories of Pakistan: Punjab, 57%, Sindh, 22%, Balochistan, 6%, KP, 10% and AJK, 5%. The age bracket is from 18 to 50 plus, and social-economic status is from higher to lower income holders, as shown in the picture below.
COVID-19 MYTHS IPSOS SNAP POLL
The results are overwhelming. As per the report, only “2 people out of 5 can correctly recall the official helpline (1166) to report COVID-19 cases, rest are either unaware or cannot recall correctly.”
COVID-19 MYTHS IPSOS SNAP POLL
RELIGIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC MISCONCEPTIONS
Moreover, Pakistanis have alarming religious and scientific misconceptions on COVID-19. According to the data: 82% believe that “they can remain protected if they do wudu 5 times a day. “67% believe that “Allah has control over all viruses so congregation prayer in the mosque (jamaat) cannot infect anyone with the virus. 58% think that if “once the summer hear starts, the coronavirus will disappear.” 48% says that “shaking hands is Sunnah, so they cannot infect anyone with COVID-19 by doing so.”
Other majors misconceptions are mentioned below in the slide.
COVID-19 MYTHS IPSOS SNAP POLL
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Apart from religious and scientific misconceptions, a large number of Pakistanis have controversial misconceptions on COVID-19. 43% in Pakistan see COVID-19 as a “foreign conspiracy by America and Israel to weaken us (Pakistan).” 43% believe that they “should avoid people from certain sects or faiths, as they are more prone to coronavirus.” 39% think “Women who breastfeed should be in ablution/wudu all the time, so they don’t transfer COVID-19 to the baby. 30% is off the view that “only sweepers and domestic workers can contract the virus because they’re not clean.”
