KARACHI: The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) will cease to function today (Thursday) as all its functions, roles and responsibilities will officially be handed over to National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad.
“Tomorrow the functions (of NCOC) will be officially handed over to NIH. From Friday, the work will continue from NIH Islamabad, ‘inshallah”, an official of the National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (NHS,R&C) told The News on Wednesday, making it clear that NCOC was not being closed as only its functions were being transitioned to NIH, Islamabad.
Established inside the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) Secretariat in Islamabad, NCOC was set up in March 2020 in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic to collect, analyse and process information.
Officials said Prime Minister Imran Khan was supposed to officially announce handing over NCOC to Centre for Communicable Diseases (CDC) at the NIH Islamabad but due to the prevailing political situation in the country, he would not be able to attend the formal closure of the emergency centre.
“Tomorrow Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar will formally hand over the NCOC to the Executive Director NIH, Islamabad at the NCOC last routine meeting,” NHS,R&C official added.
The NCOC is the entity in charge of Pakistan's COVID-19 efforts, policies and implementation and makes suggestions to the Prime Minister's National Coordination Committee for timely actions related to the national COVID-19 response, NHS official said, adding that it includes specialists from both the civil and military institutions and is currently being headed by a major general. Asad Umer is the in charge of the initiative.
Special Assistant to Prime Minister Dr Faisal Sultan had earlier told The News that ultimately NCOC had to be wrapped up and now its role and responsibilities are being handed over to the newly created CDC at NIH Islamabad.
According to Dr Faisal Sultan, government had reformed the National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad so that it could effectively deal with any health emergency in the future and a Centre for Communicable Diseases (CDC) has been created within the NIH to play the role of NCOC.
It is worth mentioning here that Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates had also praised the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) and the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), in fighting diseases.
In his blog, Gates wrote, "Last week I also went to Pakistan, where I visited two of the country’s innovative command centres for fighting diseases, the NEOC for polio eradication and the NCOC for COVID."
"The NEOC uses state-of-the-art information tools developed by Global Polio Eradication Initiative to track polio so that no child is ever paralysed by it again," he added. The NCOC, Gates said had applied resources and lessons learnt from the polio programme — including data analysis, vaccine campaign planning, and community engagement— to coordinate Pakistan’s response to COVID. "Both centres blew me away," the philanthropist said.