KARACHI: Getz Pharma is proud to announce that it is the first and only organization in Pakistan to have taken the initiative of testing each and every employee for Covid-19, and to close its factory and head office in Karachi, completely, till every employee has been tested.
“Getz Pharma Cares for your health has been the vision and mission from the day that the company started”, said Khalid Mahmood, the company’s Managing Director and CEO. He added that caring for people means leading from the front and proving it when there is a crisis and when people are in need. “Today we feel fulfilled to inform our employees and the world that that we are living up to our mission, once again, and proving it by our actions.”
From today, April 23rd, 2020, the factory and head offices will be closed and the facility will be turned into a huge COVID-19 testing and screening facility. Fifty six employees including senior managers and directors have been trained in using the FDA approved testing kits. It is expected that the first wave of 100% testing will be completed in five days from today and all 1,300 employees of Getz Pharma’s head office and factory premises would have been tested. The testing will be an ongoing activity based on an SOP made by the head of community health and medical research. The implementation of the testing, subsequent quarantine and re-testing based on the SOPs by WHO, will minimize or nearly eliminate the infection at Getz Pharma and its spread to its employees, to their families and to their communities.
Those who are found negative will be allowed to enter the facility and work in WHO and PIC/s approved manufacturing facility and at the head office. However, those who are found positive, by testing, will be sent home on a paid leave after being counseled by trained counselors. Getz Pharma will do aggressive contact tracing, testing within contacts and these employees will be retested after 30 days, and will come back to work only after they recover and become Covid-19 negative.
In the second step, the families of all workers will be tested. All workers and their families are the most valuable and vulnerable part of the Getz family. At this difficult time of need the most support is being offered by the company.
“Getz Pharma is following South Korea’s example. South Korea increased their testing ability and now has the lowest daily number of cases in the world. I believe that this action if followed as a model, will reduce the pressure on our government for testing and will protect our employees, their families and the community”, added Khalid Mahmood. To test all employees it was decided to purchase a large number of the USFDA approved testing kits.
Getz Pharma donated these FDA approved kits to the Department of Health, Government of Sindh and trained the government master trainers on the use and implementation of these testing kits. Getz Pharma is extending an open invitation to reporters from all media houses to visit the site and get free testing by showing their valid press card and NIC.“Reporters are also on the frontline of this pandemic, risking their lives by providing information to the nation, that is very crucial at this time,” said Dr. Wajiha Javed, Head of Public Health & Research.
