Sounding alarm over the possibility of coronavirus outbreak affecting his country’s marginalized groups, Prime Minister Imran Khan has proposed that rich countries cancel debt that developing countries owe them in order to let them deal with crisis.
Pakistan fears that a sudden surge in the cases of COVID-19 infections – traced to pilgrims returning from Iran – would engulf the county in a deep crisis as a large number of the impoverished people would be vulnerable with access to little or no healthcare at all.
Khan looked at the possibility as Iran said millions of people in the country could die due to coronavirus infections.
“My worry is poverty and hunger,” Khan said.
“The world community has to think of some sort of a debt write-off for countries like us, which are very vulnerable, at least that will help us in coping with (coronavirus), ” the prime minister told the Associated Press.
My interview with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan. Topics were many including coronavirus pandemic: Pakistan PM warns new virus may devastate developing nations (from @AP) by @Kathygannon @ImranKhanPTI https://t.co/DqfZRqKE4S
— Kathy Gannon (@Kathygannon) March 16, 2020
“If a serious outbreak happens in Pakistan, he’s worried his government’s efforts to lift the ailing economy out of near-collapse would begin an unstoppable slide backward.”
“It’s not just Pakistan. I would imagine the same in India, in the subcontinent, in African countries,” he noted.
“If it spreads, we will all have problems with our health facilities. We just don’t have that capability. We just don’t have the resources.”
The Pakistani prime minister also called for lifting sanctions against neighboring Iran, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East.
