5 ED officials test positive for COVID-19, headquarters sealed
New Delhi: Five Enforcement Directorate (ED) employees, including a special director rank officer, have tested positive for COVID-19, following which the headquarters of the central probe agency have been sealed for 48 hours till Monday, officials said.
Out of the five, two are contract employees. The employees were found infected after the agency carried out section-wise testing at its headquarters in the wake of some COVID-19 cases being reported from other floors of the Lok Nayak Bhawan in Khan Market, where the ED office is located, the officials said on Saturday.
All the ED employees who were found infected with COVID-19 after "proactive testing" are asymptomatic, they said.
According to the officials, the employees who have tested positive include a special director rank officer and an investigating officer. All of them have been admitted to isolation facilities for treatment.
People who came in contact with them have been quarantined, they added.
As per procedure, the headquarters of the agency have been sealed for 48 hours and are expected to resume operations on Monday, the officials said.
The affected employees have not been coming to office since they tested positive, they said.
In order to check the spread of COVID-19, a protocol has been put in place for sanitising the ED headquarters twice a week and all documents. 'Daak' (post) is sanitised before it is handed over to officers and other staff of the agency, they added.
Last month, too, an ED employee had tested positive for COVID-19.
The ED is the federal agency that investigates money laundering, black money and hawala crimes under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
