Kathmandu, May 20: President of the Nepali Congress, Sher Bahadur Deuba and his delegation today and submitted a memorandum along with 15-point action plan to prevent and control COVID-19 to Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli.

The Nepali Congress has urged the government to guarantee vaccines immediately to keep the people protected from second wave of covid and from new variants in near future. They have also requested the government to accelerate diplomatic initiation to bring vaccines and to make supply of vaccine in a transparent manner.

Their demands also include fair investigation from the concerned bodies regarding irregularities seen during supply of medical procurements, corruption and commission system seen in supply of vaccine. The memo directed to bring more oxygen concentrators to end ongoing scarcity of oxygen, and to make necessary arrangement for immediate supply and distribution.

The Nepali Congress also demanded to make arrangement of beds, oxygen facility, hospital with ICU and ventilators and necessary health workers in all districts. They also urged the Prime Minister to launch special awareness campaign to protect children from third wave of virus as experts have made projection that children might be seriously affected from the third wave of virus.

Other demands included providing subsidy in the transportation of COVID-19 patients, providing economy reliefs to the affected community, stem supply of COVID-19 medicines and medical equipment on the black market and manage hotline numbers to provide counseling and awareness messages against the infection.

The Nepali Congress has demanded that the government immediately appoints a health secretary at the Ministry of Health and Population and effectively manages a mechanism at the COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre (CCMC). The government should manage required resources at local level to control the virus. It also should regulate PCR tests for COVID-19 for cross border mobility of people at transits and other management against the infection and stop a cartel in PCR tests for foreign job aspirants.

They also drew the attention of the Prime Minister to ensure timely availability of allowances and health insurance for the front-liners as announced by the government.

(With inputs from agencies)