WHO launches mask wearing campaign in federal capital

ISLAMABAD, Sep 13 (APP):World Health Organization’s (WHO) Country Office Pakistan on Monday launched the mask wearing campaign in collaboration with district health authorities in the federal capital.

During the campaign with slogan “Wear a mask-Protect Pakistan”, WHO will hand over masks to the federal and district health authorities like Islamabad Police, National Institute of Health (NIH), Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) and Health Services Academy.

Addressing the launching ceremony, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination, Dr Faisal Sultan urged the citizens to strictly follow COVID-19 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to prevent the disease in the wake of a sudden increase in the number of infections in the country.

He said that the disease expansion had caused a burden on the country’s health system as Covid cases were jumping up for the past few weeks.
He said that keeping in view the disease risk certain restrictions were imposed focusing on high-risk sectors with mass gathering. He said that this time is not of any complacency rather strict compliance of SOPs.

He said “COVID-19 is a deadly virus, but we can control it just as we controlled it by following the SOPs during the previous waves. We can save precious lives, including those of our near and dear ones by taking preventive measures.”

He said that the COVID-19 vaccine is very effective to protect citizens from medical complications from many virus variants.

Dr Faisal said, “Keeping in view the detection of new COVID-19 variants in Pakistan and raising questions about the effectiveness of vaccine process, I advise country people to must go for vaccination against the virus to avoid facing more complications and hospitalization.”