Pakistan

CAA withdraws private carrier's permit upon COVID SOPs violation

The flight permit of a private airline—Air Blue has been revoked by Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) upon the violation of coronavirus Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

Published

6 months ago

May 18, 2021 05:32 AM

Fateh Farooq

CAA withdraws private carrier's permit upon COVID SOPs violation

GNN Media: Representational Photo

Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority on May 16 released the letter which highlighted that a private-owned airline’s flight PA613 was found violating coronavirus SOPs carrying 24 COVID-19 positive passengers from Dubai to Peshawar.

After the report came out, the CAA decided to revoke the airline’s flight permit from Dubai to Peshawar on May 17.

According to a spokesperson of CAA, the airline was found violating SOPs on May 16 bringing 27 coronavirus positive passengers in a Sharjah-Peshawar flight.

The report also identified that the negligence shown by the airline administration could result in the spread of the virus.

“The violations by the airline are endangering lives of passengers,” said a spokesman.

Earlier, the notice was issued to the airlines stating that the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) has informed that the private airline has again found in violation of COVID-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs) implemented to curb the pandemic by bringing COVID positive passengers to Peshawar from Sharjah.

Last week, 24 passengers who were kept in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19 had mysteriously gone missing from the Peshawar Police hospital.

Last week, Pakistan had allowed airlines to operate an additional 30% of flights in a revised policy.

According to a notification issued in this regard, additional flights were allowed to ensure passengers were able to travel abroad without any hindrances, while only cargo flights of foreign airlines were allowed to return to Pakistan.

This is in addition to the 20% of flights that were already allowed by the CAA to operate in Pakistan, the notification stated.

As per the directives issued earlier by NCOC, the number of foreign flights operating to Pakistan was reduced to 20%, keeping in mind the prevalent coronavirus situation in the country and the region.

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Fateh Farooq

Fateh Farooq is a senior editor at GNN, known for writing top quality content which garner very high readerships and has been covering every field of journalism, including politics, media, sports and scholarly articles. Fateh Farooq is nothing less than a Veteran Editor and has been writing for GNN for the past 10 months.

World

Kabul roadside blast causes casualties: Report

As per preliminary detail, the target of the attack appeared to have been an open-backed vehicle like a Toyota Hilux.

Published

17 minutes ago

Nov 30, 2021 11:11 AM

Mehak Javed

Kabul roadside blast causes casualties: Report

Kabul: A roadside bomb blast in Afghanistan capital Kabul caused at least five casualties, television station Ariana News said on Tuesday.

As per preliminary detail, the target of the attack appeared to have been an open-backed vehicle like a Toyota Hilux.

However, there were no further details and no official confirmation of the figures.

More to follow…

Pakistan

Pakistan continues to report decline in COVID cases, deaths

Around 475 fresh coronavirus cases emerged while 10 people succumbed to the disease in the last 24 hours, taking the total death toll to 28,728.

Published

3 hours ago

Nov 30, 2021 08:22 AM

Mehak Javed

Pakistan continues to report decline in COVID cases, deaths

Islamabad: Amid a steady decline in Covid-19 infections, Pakistan's coronavirus positivity ratio further fell to 1.1% with 475 new cases.

According to the latest figures issued by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), 475 persons were tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours.

The total number of cases has reached 1,284,840.

As many as 1,242,236 patients have recovered from the disease.

Punjab

The number of patients swelled to 443,094 in the province with 13,023 causalities.

Sindh

The number of infections has surged to 475,616 in the province, while the death toll has reached 7,621.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

The confirmed cases have surged to 179,995 in the province with 5,842 casualties.

Balochistan

There are 33,479 confirmed cases while 360 patients have died from the infection so far.

AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan

There are 34,556 coronavirus cases in the AJK while the death toll has reached 742. On the other hand, there are 10,411 cases in GB with 186 coronavirus deaths.

Islamabad

There are 10,411 cases in the capital city while 954 people have lost their lives.

Health

'We are already working on vaccine against Covid's Omicron variant': Pfizer CEO

Pfizer has already started working on a version of its Covid-19 vaccine specifically targeting the Omicron variant in case the current inoculation is not effective against the new strain, the US drugmaker's CEO Albert Bourla said Monday.

Published

14 hours ago

Nov 29, 2021 09:22 PM

Faisal Ali Ghumman

'We are already working on vaccine against Covid's Omicron variant': Pfizer CEO

Bourla told CNBC that his company on Friday began testing the current vaccine against the Omicron variant, which was first reported in South Africa and reignited fears of a global wave of Covid-19 infections.

"I don't think the result will be the vaccines don't protect," Bourla said.

But the testing could show that existing shots "protect less," which means "that we need to create a new vaccine," Bourla said.

"Friday we made our first DNA template, which is the first possible inflection of the development process of a new vaccine," he said.

Bourla likened the situation to the scenario earlier this year when Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech developed a vaccine in 95 days when there were concerns the previous formula would not work against Delta, though that version ultimately was not used.

The current vaccine is "very effective" against Delta, the executive said, adding that the companies expect to be able to produce four billion vaccine doses in 2022.

On Monday, the World Health Organization warned the new Covid-19 Omicron variant poses a "very high" risk globally.

Bourla said he was also "very confident" that Pfizer's recently unveiled antiviral pill would work as a treatment for infections caused by the mutations, including Omicron.

Among newly-infected, high risk patients treated within three days of the onset of symptoms, Pfizer's pill has been shown to cut hospitalization or death by nearly 90 percent.

SOURCE: AFP/CNBC