Third wave of coronavirus: Dr Zafar Mirza for adopting strict measures

ISLAMABAD: Former special assistant to prime minister for health, Dr Zafar Mirza, has warned that if strict measures are not adopted, then the third wave of coronavirus could cause more harm and the situation could become worse than last June 2020.

The government would have to deploy more vaccines at an accelerated pace, so the overall strategy for combating this deadly virus needs to be revisited, Dr. Zafar Mirza added. “The government needs to revise its communication strategy with involvement at the highest political level as PM, president, chief ministers, and parliamentarians must be involved to convey messages to help the public at large. Our parliamentarians do not wear masks as one adviser was speaking but no one had bothered to wear any mask. Now the PDM is going to arrange a public gathering and long march, it will be a recipe for disaster. The government must take strict administrative actions,” the former SAPM for Health, Dr. Zafar Mirza, said in an exclusive interview with The News here on Monday.

Unlike India, the vaccine is not made in Pakistan and there is no focus on it, so Pakistan would have to import it from abroad. China has given five lakh doses and one million more will come. On international level, rich countries provided $4 to $5 billion for COVAX vaccine and 17 million vaccines would start arriving in Pakistan soon. In the private sector, there is no possibility to import vaccines because the government had already ordered those vaccines which were in the process of making.

He expressed his fears that the spread of coronavirus was still an urban phenomenon but it might spread into semi-urban and rural areas of Pakistan, where there were no healthcare facilities. “It might cause a big loss for us,” he added.

When asked about the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic, he said that the virus did not have similar effects, so it gets changed. There are 60 different varieties of viruses related to the COVID-19 pandemic and there are some variants that are more dangerous. The British variant of virus spreads at 70 percent more accelerated pace as transmissibility and severity is more dangerous, he added. , the government and people's attitudes are changing rapidly as people abandoned wearing masks. If one person gets affected, there are 10 undiagnosed persons behind it, he added.

He made it clear that no virus-affected individual entered Pakistan from China. The virus had entered into Pakistan from Iran but then the government devised a mechanism to quarantine people into different parts of the country to stop its spread. When there is global pandemic in 210 countries, Pakistan could not place a firewall for an indefinite period, he maintained.

He said that NCOC was a singular successful factor that helped the country to combat COVID-19 pandemic effectively because it ensured coordination among the Centre and the provinces. He said that PM’s strategy for partial or smart lockdown remained successful because the premier was a firm believer that complete lockdown could not remain successful where 50 percent of people were daily wage earners. So he suggested finding out alternate plans to reduce the impact of lockdown on the lives of people. The government announced Rs1.4 trillion stimulus package.

When asked why he had tendered resignation, he said that he had left the WHO job after serving for 16 years at the request of PM Imran Khan as he wanted to implement reform agenda. After serving one and a half years, he said he came to know that the system was not ready to accept the reform agenda, especially administrative structure felt threatened because of the reform plan. The bureaucracy was not ready for introducing reforms, he added. He prepared a plan for reforms and got approval of the cabinet but it could not be implemented.

He said that basically Health Ministry should be formed as Technical Ministry and cited an example that in the Ministry of Law, no one was made minister or secretary who was a non lawyer but in the Ministry of Health we claim that general administration could fix its problems.

There were 335 people in the Ministry of Health and only 11 possessed health background and all such things required to be changed. The vested interest groups, he said, started opposing reforms.

There was no legal framework available in Pakistan to declare health emergency. There is no health emergency related provision into our legislative system. “In such a situation, the Ministry of Health drafted a law and sent to cabinet but it was decided that it should be approved by the Council of Common Interests (CCI). The CCI has not yet approved the legal framework for health emergency,” he added.

There were acute shortages of nurses as in Pakistan we required one million nurses and there are only 0.1 million nurses in the country. The army’s training for medical and paramedical staff could be replicated in the country, he added.

To another query related to devising strategy for tackling first and second waves of COVID-19 pandemic, he said that all decisions related to smart lockdowns were taken by the NCOC, so he did not see any political angle involved in such decisions.