Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: World Health Organization (WHO) has provided National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) with 15 PCR machines and test kits which are eligible to carry 15,000 tests.
This is the first aid that Pakistan has received from WHO to fight the pandemic of coronavirus and try to eradicate it like the rest of the nations.
An official at the department of NDMA on condition of anonymity told that their department has received the aid from WHO but the distribution of the aid is yet to be decided.
To battle the global pandemic of corona¬virus, Pakistan has received 80 percent of donations from China alone. However, private company Ali BABA, few interna-tional NGOs, World Bank (WB) and Singapore also aided Paki¬stan in fighting and eradicating coronavi¬rus from the country.
Ali Baba donated 57,600 testing kits and around 500,000 face masks to Pakistan. The international NGOs donated four ther¬mal scanners, 50 thermal guns, 3000 san¬itizers, 10,000 masks, 1000 goggles, 1000 suits, 1000 gloves and two ambulance buses. Whereas Singapore donated 1500 goggles, 400 face shields and 2800 coveralls.
The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a $200 million package on 2nd of April to help Pakistan take effective and timely action to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic by strengthening the country’s national healthcare systems and mitigating socio-economic disruptions. This support has also believed to draw an extra $38 million from eight existing projects for urgently needed medical equipment and supplies. However, till now Pakistan has only received $100 million from the WB.
While focusing on the COVID-19 preparedness and emergency response in the health sector, the Pandemic Response Effectiveness Project (PREP) has also helped the poor and vulnerable to cope with the immediate impact of the pandemic through social protection measures, food rations, and remote learning education.
Apart from these donations, the rest of the aid is received from China which remains active and responsive whenever needed by Pakistan. China has delivered four flights as yet full of equipment needed to counter the coronavirus. Whereas, three more flights are expected to reach Pakistan any day.
The flight from Urumqi to GilgitBalti¬stan brought ventilators (5), face masks (200,000), N-95 mask, testing kits (sample kits 2,000), and protective suits (2,000).
Another flight came from Urumqi along with Chinese doctors and brought pro-tective suits (5,000), N-95 (10,800), med¬ical masks (100,800), defibrillator mon-itor (5), CPAP (9), invasive ventilator sets (3), testing kits (10,000), VTM (10,000), a-Interferon (9,600), Ribavirin IV Flu¬ids (1,8000, Umifenovir (1,500) Levoflox¬acin (1,000), Azithromycin (2,100), An¬ti-Bac Linezolid Needle (15,810), Anti-Bac Ceftriaxone (4,200), Methylprednisolone (4,500), Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate (500), VC Tablets (360), Chloroquine Phosphate (120), LianhuaQingwen (2100), Huox¬iangZhengqi Herbal (1,400),FufangYizhi¬hao Herbal (1,260), Zukamu Herbal (2,100) and Xuebijing IV Fluids (14,000).
After this flight, China sent another flight from Wuhan which brought disposable coveralls (10,000), N-95 (20,000), medical face masks (300,000), ICU ventilators (10), and portable ventilators (5).
After the flight from Wuhan with dona¬tions, Singapore assistance came along with coveralls (2,800), goggles (1,500), and face shields (400).
These are the donations which Pakistan has received as yet. However, according to the data uploaded by NDMA on their official website, more deliveries are expected from China. Flights from Guangzhou, Wuhan and Chengdu are expected to arrive in the coming days.
Flight from Guangzhou is expected to de¬liver further non-medical masks (400,000), home ventilators (40), ICU ventilators (3), protection suits (2,000), goggles (10,000), face shields (10,000), medical face masks (100,000), sanitizers (182,816 bottles) and thermal guns (200).
