KATHMANDU: The Health Ministry has recommended that lockdown should be enforced the day active cases of coronavirus infection surpass the 25,000 mark.

At present, the number of active infections is 17,414 of which 8710 (50.01 per cent) are concentrated in the Kathmandu valley alone.

A meeting of the Incident Command System (ICS) held today under the convenorship of Health Secretary decided to recommend the measure as infections are steadily rising.

"The current health infrastructure is not adequate to manage a crisis of such scale and as such, in a bid to control the spread of infections, lockdown will have to be considered in such situation," spokesperson at the Ministry Dr Jageshwar Gautam said.

Likewise, the ministry has decided that businesses and services that are unable to adhere to the health protocols will be shut down for at least a month given the high-risk situation and steady spread of the pandemic.

Similarly, the ICS has authorised concerned bodies to take action or recommend action against hospitals and labs that are charging more than government-fixed rate for conducting PCR tests.