By Muhammad Luqman
Pakistan government has declared wearing masks in public places mandatory as 78 record deaths from pandemic were reported in a single day on Saturday since the novel coronavirus struck the South Asian country in February.
“Surgical and cloth masks can be used while travelling in trains, public transport or going to mosques, bazaars, and shops,” Special Assistant to Prime Minister, Dr. Zafar Mirza told a news conference in the capital, Islamabad.
Pakistan while responding to rising demand of the face masks, ,has attained the capability to produce its own face masks and protective clothing and is in position to export sanitiser.
” We are very close to to produce N95 masks locally as well,” Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Fawad Chaudhary recently said.
Meanwhile, a Chinese firm , Xuzhou Xunyike System Technology has lately donated two automatic, intelligent mask production lines to help Pakistan build its mask industry, according to Geo TV.
Each machine has a capacity to produce 100,000 masks per day, Xunyike General Manager Qin Ping said .
The production line donated to Pakistan, through Pakistan Embassy in Beijing, can ensure fully automatic production.
It can also ensure remote data collection, debugging and maintenance services by giving operating instructions in Suzhou.
“There is no mask industry in Pakistan, so we are donating the production lines to help Pakistan build the mask industry,” Qin Ping recently told media men.
He said the complete mask production line involves a lot of things. In addition to the mask machine itself, there are also packaging systems and other auxiliary equipment.
“We initially considered donating a complete, fully automatic (mask production line), but considering that Pakistan itself does not have a mask industry, we later handed over relatively easy-to-operate semi-automatic equipment, at least to ensure that export masks can be produced immediately,” he added.
