Delegation of 19 countries’ diplomats, defence attaches visit NCOC

ISLAMABAD, Apr 20 (APP):A delegation of foreign diplomats including ambassadors, high commissioners and Defence attaches from 19 countries visited National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC).
According to NCOC, on arrival at the centre, the delegation was received by National Coordinator (NCOC) Lieutenant General Hamood uz Zaman Khan. The delegation was given a detailed briefing on the scale, scope of NCOC, National COVID-19 response architecture, National COVID overview and Pakistan’s response paradigm.
Minister for Planning, Development, Reforms and Special Initiatives Asad Umer briefed the visiting delegation on COVID situation and its impact on various sectors of Pakistan and containment efforts made so far to mitigate the challenges and provision of best possible services to common people in line with the prime minister’s vision.
Asad Umar said the decision making to fight the pandemic of coronavirus was made through national consensus and structured coordination of civil-military institutions, political leadership of the provinces including Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan.
Chairing the high level meeting of foreign diplomats at NCOC, he said all the policy making and actions were made in Pakistan after keeping in view the socio-economic dynamics, health structure capacity and demographic response.
He noted that Pakistan’s exports had declined by 58 percent whereas no such drop had occurred in the foreign remittances of the country.
He lauded the initiatives of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank and termed those initiatives as propitious. “IMF’s decision to defer debt repayments for developing countries has increased liquidity in the local markets that helped in taking measures to cope with the coronavirus outbreak.”
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Zafar Mirza gave an overview of the health sector and Pakistan’s COVID-19 response. The delegation was apprised in detail on epidemiological aspects of COVID 19 and efforts at all levels.
“We need to digitalize our healthcare system from primary to tertiary level as if we had digital health care system then we would have been in a better position today. The importance of telemedicine and information technology has become significant,” he added.
He informed that online facility was going to be launched to take benefit from the expertise of 30,000 overseas Pakistani doctors through telemedicine.
Minister for Economic Affairs Khusro Bakhtiar briefed the dignitaries about financial assistance extended by World Bank, IMF, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and thanked the G-20 members for their assistance in grace period to focus on COVID-19 challenges.
The delegation included Dean of Diplomatic Corps, Diplomats and Defence Attaches of Australia, Canada, China, Cuba, Egypt, European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan Korea, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and United Kingdom.