Press Releases

As more coronavirus cases are testing positive, that have more than doubled in just past 24 hours, the federal and provincial governments are fast becoming the target of mass criticism for the measures that were in place, despite an early warning and examples from other countries we had in advance. Governments (both provincial and central) argue that these cases are mostly foreign returners and toll has risen rapidly only because results of clinical tests are now becoming available. Not to mention, majority — more than two third of — cases are those who returned from Iran, while there are also cases that were Dubai, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Syria returners. Despite all these new cases, no major lock-down is announced, for any of the cities in the country. However, with rising cases, a mass-scale lock-down seems imminent. Here are the latest updates on Coronavius for the day: 9.20 amUAE Suspends Prayer in Mosques and All Houses of Worship UAE’s state news agency WAM reported that th..

Jazz has announced that it is implementing mandatory “Work from Home” policy for its country-wide operations, starting immediately. Aamir Ibrahim, CEO Jazz, who is leading the coronavirus prevention drive at the company, announced this new policy in an email that’s sent to the entire company a while ago. “I wanted to assure you that in these difficult times, your wellbeing is my foremost concern”, wrote Aamir in the email. But said that during this challenging time the company also has an obligation towards the nation for providing parallel cellular, banking and communication services. Considering the best known measure to defeat coronavirus, Aamir announced: Jazz will be moving to a mandatory work-from-home policy nationwide from March 17 to March 31, 2020 Given the size of Jazz, as a corporation and the scope of services it offers, the decision is massive. Not to mention, company has business continuity plan in place, meaning that customers will continue to avail Jazz and JazzCa..

The COVID-19 outbreak has already spread to over 130 countries and the number of patients continue to increase. Increasing cases are also creating a shortage of the expensive COVID-19 detection kits. Researchers across the world are trying to find ways to reduce the testing cost by devising cheaper kits. Researchers from a Pakistani university have claimed to have produce a coronavirus kit that is even cheaper than any other iterations. ALSO READ Syed Murad Ali Shah Explains the Coronavirus Situation in Sindh Prof Dr. Muhammad Idrees and his team of students at the University of Punjab have managed to create a testing kit that will be able to diagnose coronavirus among patients and cost only $5, or 800 rupees. This is much cheaper than kits that have been previously produced which cost around 3200 rupees. While talking to the media, Professor of Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology Dr. Muhammad Idrees said that they had been working on the kit since January and were able to ..

Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah has revealed that 11 more suspected patients have tested positive for coronavirus. All of them were from the mandatory quarantine in Sukkar. While addressing a press conference in Karachi, Murad said that a total of 394 tests have been done in Sindh. Out of them, 27 people tested positive and are being treated. About Sukkar Quarantine Facility He said that the pilgrims returning from the Taftan border were again quarantined in Sukkar, where their samples were retaken. Out of those, 50 people tested positive for the virus on Sunday, while 11 more positive confirmations arrived as he spoke, taking the provincial tally to 88. More results are expected later tonight, he added. Speaking of the quarantine facility in Sukkar, CM Murad Ali Shah said that they had vacated the labor department’s flats. We have 1024 flats of the labor department with two rooms each, so we had the capacity of 2048 individuals. Exposing the Taftan Blunder Syed Murad Ali ..

Following the outbreak of Coronavirus in December last year, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) had allocated $12.5 million to three medical firms to expedite the development of the vaccine of COVID-19; Moderna, Inovio, and University of Queensland. Now, the researchers at Moderna are claiming that they have developed the COVID-19 vaccine at unprecedented speed and will soon begin clinical trials. ALSO READ Israel Says It Will Introduce Coronavirus Vaccine in 90 Days Moderna is a US-based biotechnology company that specializes in vaccine development by converting viral sequences into messenger RNA (mRNA). Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at Moderna, Tal Zaks, says that the medical firm had already recruited volunteers for the clinical trials in the first week of March. I don’t think proving the vaccine in an animal model is on the critical path to getting this to a clinical trial. However, this is not the way how vaccine testing happens normally. Medical firms ar..

CDC Group, the UK’s publicly owned impact investor, has signed an $82 million debt deal in a wind power project in Pakistan that will reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. The deal will fund 150MW of wind farms located in the Jhimpir area of the Sindh province of Pakistan. The project involves three separate schemes of 50MW each – two developed by Liberty Mills and one by Indus Group. The projects are part of a program of 12 wind projects across Pakistan totaling 610 MW, increasing the renewable energy generation capacity of Pakistan by 50 percent and providing clean, affordable power to the country at an average tariff of $4.5c/kWh, in comparison to the existing average wind project tariff of $11.0c/kWh. The projects will avoid the equivalent to the average annual emissions of 130,000 people or 0.06 percent of the total of Pakistan’s annual domestic greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, they will add $19.1 million to the country’s GDP, support the creation of 6,260 indi..

According to Shanghai’s The Paper, Li Liang, a 36 years old resident of Wuhan, has died due to respiratory failure, just five days after being discharged from a quarantine facility. Li Liang was first admitted to a makeshift hospital made to treat mild and moderate cases of coronavirus on 12 February. After recovering from the affliction, the hospital staff discharged Li on completion of the mandatory 14-day isolation period. Li was also directed to remain in self-isolation for another two weeks as a precautionary measure. However, he started to feel unwell once again in a couple of days and complained about a dry mouth and gaseous stomach. As per Li’s spouse, Li fell ill on 2 March and was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead later that day. Li Liang’s death certificate issued by Wuhan Health Commission states COVID-19 as the direct cause of the death and listed respiratory failure as the symptom which could have led to the man’s death. On one hand, the Chinese g..

A special meeting of Concept Clearance Committee / CDWP was convened to initiate precautionary measures and approve the concept paper of “Pakistan National Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan for COVID-19” in Islamabad. The meeting was chaired by Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Dr. Muhammad Jehanzeb Khan. Secretary Planning Zafar Hasan and senior officials from EAD ministries also attended the meeting. The Project was presented by Chief Health and informed that the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination have come up with a proposal to enhance country capacity for preparedness and response to COVID-19 pandemic. The project aims to establish functional coordination mechanism at the national and provincial levels for preparedness and response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Government of Pakistan is working to strengthen preparedness to identify, diagnose primary cases, effectively respond to minimize impact of COVID-19 through surveillance strengthening,..