By Ammad Khan
All sections of the society need to be united and develop a national plan to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. Here are ten ways to combat this disease.
1.More medical facilities: The biggest issue in dealing with coronavirus is that patients and doctors of other departments are also being exposed to the deadly virus, and young doctors refused to work in outdoor patients facilities. This turned out to be a serious problem in northern Italy as mortality rate increased when an already affected person is exposed to Covid-19. A solution in this context is to establish temporary hospitals in big universities campuses or wherever else possible so that all those who want testing or treatment of Covid-19 (suspected patients and those need intensive care) could be marginalised to a specific location so threat level to paramedics could be reduced to a significant level.
2. Coordination with world and world studies and analysis could provide us a way on how to deal with this pandemic so all high achievers (present or older ones) should be called for formation of national Corona centre which could coordinate coordinate with international universities and could analyse their finding on dealing with Covid-19.
3. Local research: According to media reports, the malaria antidote and Japanese flu vaccine have proved beneficial for Covid-19 patients to recover so we should reopen our pharmaceutical and biotechnology departments of university for research on disease on local level.
4. Develop an app: IT sector can provide help by making an app which provides probability of a person to get Covid-19 based on his/her travel history so that highly probable patients should be not only screened but also tested by blood sample.
5. Train young doctors: Overseas Pakistani could also be used many of them are top ranked internationally our foreign ministry could collaborate with them on training young doctors and those in last year so we can be prepared for any worst situation.
6. Social distancing: People to people contact should be strictly controlled by applying fine for violating government orders of prohibition of gatherings and those who are there on recreational places like public parks.
7. Medical Supplies: Apart of all these taxes along with international aid should be used for preparing ventilators and N-95 masks at local level as we are short of them moreover it will provide urban daily waged a source of income.
8. Control cross border movement: We can control this pandemic easily if our neighbour is not an epicentre of disease. We should provide Iran assistance at least in border areas. Moreover, cross border illegal movement should also be controlled on both land and sea routes.
9. Role of media: Our mainstream media should urge people not to believe fake news propagated on social media. We should take action against all these pages and groups through FIA cyber crime wing.
10. Encourage innovation: NUST students claim they prepared a cheap testing kit. If so, it should be brought to market quickly that costs between 800 and 1000 and if so we should start aggressive corona testing in infected areas as South Korea and Japan did to contain virus.