Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif constituted the Central Emergency Response Committee on Wednesday to curb the dengue virus in the city. The committee, headed by the chief minister, comprises Senator Pervaiz Rashid, Member of National Assembly (MNA) Hamza Shahbaz, the chief minister inspection team chairman, the town emergency committees’ chairs, the health secretary, the local government and community government secretaries, special branch additional inspector general, information secretary, the Lahore Commissioner, the Lahore district coordination officer (DCO), health district officer, health executive district officer, Dr Nudrat Jahan, CD experts Dr Sobia and Dr Javed Akram. The committee is to meet daily at 7am and review the dengue outbreak situation. It is empowered to take administrative, financial and operational decisions.
The committee will be responsible for social mobilistion by involving civil society; youth sports clubs, trade organisations, religious leaders and women’s organisations. It will ensure and monitor the house to house anti viral spray at the level of the union council. The committee will organise awareness seminars at Muhallah and street level in schools and wedding halls and will monitor the way hospitals are treating dengue patients. The Lahore DCO has been directed to ensure that the town level committees may hold their meetings at 7am simultaneously. According to the notification, the town emergency committees at Ravi Town, Data Ganj Baksh Town, Gulberg Town, Samanabad Town, Nishter Town, Allama Iqbal Town, Shalimar Town, Defence Housing Authority and Cantt will be headed by MNAs Riaz Malik, Bilal Yaseen, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Mian Marghoob Ahmed, Naseer Bhutta, Afzal Khokhar, Pervaiz Malik and Khawaja Saad Rafiq respectively while Emergency Committees at Wahga Town and Aziz Bhatti Town will be chaired by Rana Tajammal.
