KATHMANDU, MAY 16

The COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre has directed the Ministry of Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs to carry out groundwork for formulation of additional laws as new laws are necessary to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a special meeting of the CCMC today, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli directed the ministry and the bodies concerned to make necessary preparations since the clauses of the Infectious Disease Act, 2020 were not enough to control the pandemic.

The meeting decided to move ahead by eliminating existing legal hassles for the immediate arrangement of vaccine and oxygen in the country.

After the meeting, Foreign Affairs Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali said the meeting also directed the bodies concerned to work with more enthusiasm to ensure health supplies, including oxygen and vaccines.

Saying that the government had made concerted efforts to end the loss of people's lives owing to lack of oxygen, Minister Gyawali said, 'The adverse scenario during the past two weeks made our lives very difficult.

It is believed that such a grave situation will slow down gradually.'

'The meeting decided to encourage entrepreneurs to run oxygen industries on full capacity across the country as it has been facing shortage of oxygen. It also decided to take diplomatic initiatives to fetch more liquid oxygen from India,' said the foreign minister. Stating that some oxygen cylinders were brought from China and India while preparations to fetch other oxygen cylinders were under way, he opined that the government believed that the problem of oxygen crisis would be eliminated within a few days.

As per government analysis, the infection rate has reached its peak.

On the occasion, PM Oli directed the concerned agencies to do the needful so that people would not have to lose their lives due to lack of money and other problems.

'Do whatever you need to save people's lives by working efficiently and promptly. People's lives should be saved.'

'The meeting also discussed the issue of declaring a health emergency in the country. A comprehensive study on the matter is under way,' said Minister Gyawali.

To deal with the ongoing crisis effectively, he stressed the need to run hospitals and various health institutions under the Ministry of Health and Population and basic hospitals being operated at the provincial and local levels in an integrated manner.

A version of this article appears in the print on May 17, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.