LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) president and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif has urged the government to seek professional advice from China on how to control coronavirus (COVID-19).

“Contact China for professional advice on countering coronavirus threat without any delay,” Mr Sharif said in a statement issued here as the first patient in the Punjab capital was confirmed on Sunday.

The deadly virus originated from Chinese city Wuhan over two months ago and has so far claimed more than 3,000 lives in China. Chinese authorities locked down the city and managed to contain the lethal contagious disease through strict precautionary and healthcare measures.

Shahbaz Sharif suggested learning lessons from the Chinese experience and adopting a comprehensive strategy for taking precautionary measures and ensuring treatment facilities for the affected persons. He called for establishing a monitoring system at national and provincial levels and diverting the Rs100 million funds given to each lawmaker for development works towards the cause of tackling COVID-19.

Calls for diverting lawmakers’ funds to tackle COVID-19

The PML-N president alleged that the federal government had so far failed to play a central role in view of the lethal disease and was “confining its activities to statements and press conferences”.

He lauded Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and his government for playing a proactive role in safeguarding lives of the people of the province.

During the 2011 outbreak of dengue in Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif as then chief minister had bound all private laboratories to conduct dengue tests for Rs90 per patient while making the facility free at state-run hospitals. He had also invited international experts, particularly from Sri Lanka where dengue had been pandemic a few years ago, to seek their help in containing the disease. Special dengue squads visited many households, workplaces and commercial entities to ensure that there was no stagnant water that could foster the mosquitoes carrying the virus and insecticides were sprayed at all open places to kill the germs.

PML-N’s Punjab information secretary Azma Bukhari has, meanwhile, criticised the Punjab government for what she called making poor arrangements in state-run hospitals to test and detect COVID-19 cases. She said people were being forced to contact private laboratories for the test at much higher rates.

Recalling that the PML-N government had bound even private laboratories during the dengue outbreak in 2011 to conduct tests for the disease at a fixed rate of Rs90, Ms Bukhari urged the PTI administration to follow suit and introduce free of cost test facility at major state-run hospitals and set minimum rates for private labs, which are currently charging Rs10,000 per person.

She said the government should take all necessary measures at state-run hospitals and cabinet members should visit them for monitoring the facilities to control the virus instead of just issuing statements.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2020