State Health Minister Dr Faisal Sultan has revealed that the Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) Government has planned to establish a Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

According to the details, the State Health Minister in his statement said the centre will be modelled after Atlanta-based national public health institute in the United States (US).

While giving details, he said that the centre would be a different institution – it would gather information on diseases, analyze, and recommend actions and issue guidelines on all aspects of health.

Dr Faisal Sultan said it would cut down the need to create setups such as the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) and the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC).

The State Health Minister said that this reactionary practice should come to end now and there should be a permanent institution like the CDC Atlanta to deal with such emergencies and plan for future threats.

It is pertinent to mention here that Karachi has the highest test positivity rate in the country at 20.12 percent, followed by Hyderabad, where the positivity rate stands at 18.43pc percent.

In Abbottabad, 14.53 percent of the COVID-19 tests are turning out to be positive, the NCOC was told, making it the city with the third-highest positivity rate in the country.

Positive cases of a novel coronavirus in Balochistan reached to 12.5 percent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 5.6 percent, Punjab 4.2 percent, federal capital city Islamabad 6.6 percent and Gilgit-Baltistan 4.7.

In cities, Lahore has 5.69 percent positivity, Rawalpindi 4.95 and Faisalabad 6.8 percent the NCOC session was informed.